Chapter IV: Book VI: Simon Magus, Valentinus, and Their Followers (3)

[Footnote 12: This is the evident meaning of the sentence. Hippolytus ignores all rules as to the order of his words. Macmahon translates as if Christ were meant.]

[Footnote 13: Deut. iv. 24, “consuming” only in A. V.]

[Footnote 14: Empedocles also. See Vol. I. pp. 40-41 _supra_.]

[Footnote 15: τὸ γράμμα ἀποφάσεως, _liber revelationis_, Cr., “the treatise of a revelation,” Macmahon; as if it were the title of a book. But the title of the book attributed to Simon is given later as Ἡ ἀποφάσις μεγάλη, and there seems no reason why the second syzygy of the series should be singled out in it for special mention.]

[Footnote 16: A phrase singularly like this occurs in the “Naassene” author. See Vol. I. pp. 140-141 _supra_, where the “universals” are enumerated.]

[Footnote 17: Or that which can only be perceived by the mind and that which can be perceived by the senses.]

[Footnote 18: ἐπινοήσῃ. The sense of the passage seems to require “perceive”; but the Greek can only mean “have in one’s mind.” Probably some blunder of the copyist.]

[Footnote 19: Here, again, he has inverted the order. The hidden is the intelligible, the manifest, the perceptible.]

[Footnote 20: The simile of the Treasure-house finds frequent expression in the _Pistis Sophia_.]

[Footnote 21: Dan. iv. 12.]

[Footnote 22: ἐξεικονισθῇ. Macmahon translates “if it be fully grown” on the strength apparently of a passage in the LXX; but the word is used too frequently throughout this chapter to have that meaning here.]

[Footnote 23: Isa. v. 7. The A.V. has “the men” for “a man” and “pleasant” for “beloved.”]

[Footnote 24: τοῖς ἐξεικονισμένοις.]

[Footnote 25: 1 Pet. i. 24, 25. The A.V. has “glory of man” for “glory of flesh.”]

[Footnote 26: τέλειον νοερὸν. It is very difficult to find in English a word expressing the difference between this νοερός, “intellectual,” and νοητός, “intelligible.”]

[Footnote 27: Reading ἀπειράκις ἀπείρων (ὄντων) for the ἀπειράκις ἀπείρως of Cruice’s text.]

[Footnote 28: Cruice’s emendation. The Codex has γνώμην ἴσην, “equal opinion”? Schneidewin, νώματος αἶσαν.]

[Footnote 29: Here we have Simon’s cosmogonical ideas set out for the first time in something like his own words. He seems to postulate the existence of a Logos who makes the Six Powers or Roots and who is himself present in them all. This does not appear to differ from the view of Philo, for which see _Forerunners_, I, 174, or Schürer’s _Hist. of the Jewish People_ there quoted.]

[Footnote 30: Νοῦς καὶ Ἐπίνοιαν, Φωνὴ καὶ Ὄνομα, Λογισμὸς καὶ Ἐνθύμησις. The last name is the only one that presents any difficulty, although every heresiologist but Hippolytus gives the female of the first syzygy as Ἔννοια. Ἐνθύμησις is translated _Conceptio_ by Cruice, “Reflection” by Macmahon. It seems as if it here meant “desire” in a mental, not a fleshly, sense; but as this word has a double meaning in English, I have substituted for it “Passion.” Hereafter the Greek names will be used.]

[Footnote 31: This daring idea that the Logos, the chief intermediary between God and matter in whom all the lesser λόγοι and powers were contained, as Philo thought, must himself either return to and be united to God or else be lost in matter and perish, is met with in one form or another in nearly all later forms of Gnosticism. It is this which makes the redemption of Sophia after her “fall” so prominent in the mythology of Valentinus, while its converse is shown in the First Man of Manichæism conquered by Satan and groaning in chains and darkness until released by the heavenly powers and placed in some intermediate world to wait until the last spark of the light which he has lost is redeemed from matter. It seems to be the natural consequence of Philo’s ideas, for which see Schürer’s _Hist. of the Jewish People_ (Eng. ed.) II, ii. pp. 370-376. Whether these did not in turn owe something to Greek stories of mortals like Heracles and Dionysos deified as a reward for their sufferings is open to question. Cf. _Forerunners_, vol. I.]

[Footnote 32: Justinus also used this quotation from Isaiah i. 2, although in abbreviated form. See _supra_, Vol. I. p. 179. The A.V. has “nourished and brought up” for “begotten and raised up,” and “rebelled against” for “disregarded.”]

[Footnote 33: So Philo according to Zeller and Schürer, (_op. cit._, p. 374) understands by the Logos “the power of God or the active Divine intelligence in general.” He designates it as the “idea which comprises all other ideas, the power which comprises all powers in itself, as the entirety of the supersensuous world or of the Divine powers.”]

[Footnote 34: Gen. ii. 2.]

[Footnote 35: The Sethiani also quote this. See _supra_, Vol. I. p. 165.]

[Footnote 36: So Ecclesiasticus xxiv. 9, makes Wisdom or Sophia say, “He created me from the beginning before all the world,” and Proverbs viii. 23, “I was set up from everlasting,” but neither passage is here directly quoted.]

[Footnote 37: Gen. i. 2, “moved upon the face of,” A.V.]

[Footnote 38: ἔπλασε, “moulded.”]

[Footnote 39: That is, masculo-feminine.]

[Footnote 40: ἐξεικονισθῇ again. Like the Boundless Power or the Logos?]

[Footnote 41: Quotation already used by the Peratæ. See _supra_, Vol. I. p. 148. For the Indivisible Point which follows, see the Naassene chapter, Vol. I. p. 141 _supra_.]

[Footnote 42: Jer. i. 5. “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee,” A.V.]

[Footnote 43: Gen. ii. 10, “to water the garden,” A.V. The four divisions of the river have been already referred to in different senses by Justinus and the Naassene author. So far from this repetition arguing forgery, as contended by Stähelin, it seems only to show that all these half-Jewish sects found in the traditions recorded in Genesis an obstacle that they were bound to explain away if possible.]

[Footnote 44: ὀχετοὶ πνεύματος. Cruice and Macmahon translate πνεῦμα by “spirit,” but it here evidently means “breath” from what is said later about the nostrils. Cruice mentions that the ancients finding the arteries empty at death concluded that they were filled by air during life.]

[Footnote 45: The use of the first person shows that this is Hippolytus’ and not Simon’s explanation.]

[Footnote 46: ἀναπνοή, “inbreathing.”]

[Footnote 47: Cruice’s emendation.]

[Footnote 48: A hiatus to be filled evidently with some reference to the mouth. The whole of this passage seems corrupt. From what is said about the bitterness of the water _Exodus_ should be taste, _Leviticus_ smell and _Numbers_ hearing.]

[Footnote 49: The simile as well as the phrase is to be found in Aristotle. Cf. his _Organon_, c. viii.]

[Footnote 50: Cf. Isa. ii. 4; Micah iv. 3.]

[Footnote 51: Matt. iii, 10; Luke iii, 9.]

[Footnote 52: So the _Bruce Papyrus_ (ed. Amélineau, p. 231) says that God when he withdrew all things into Himself, did not so draw “a little Thought,” and from this one Thought all the worlds were made.]

[Footnote 53: οὐ κοσμεῖται, _non ordinaretur_, Cr., “is not adorned,” Macmahon.]

[Footnote 54: Reading μητροπάτωρ for μήτηρ πατήρ. Cf. Clem. Alex., _Strom._, v. 14 for this word. The other epithets seem to cover allusions to the Dionysiac, the Osirian and the Attis myths.]

[Footnote 55: ἡ μεταβλητὴ γένεσις, “changeable,” because those thus born would have to go through many changes of bodies. The phrase is used by the Naassene author.]

[Footnote 56: A play τροπή, “turning,” and τροφὴ, “nutriment.”]

[Footnote 57: καὶ ἔσται δύναμις ἀπέραντος, ἀπαράλλακτος αἰῶνι ἀπαραλλάκτῳ μηκέτι γινομένῳ εἰς τὸν ἀπέραντον αἰῶνα; Cr., _et erit potestas infinita, immutabilis in saeculo immutabili quod non amplius fit per infinitum sæculum_; “and will become a power indefinite and unalterable, equal and similar to an unalterable age which no longer passes into the indefinite age,” Macmahon.]

[Footnote 58: Words in brackets Cruice’s emendation.]

[Footnote 59: παραφυάδες.]

[Footnote 60: δύναμις σιγή, a name compounded of two nouns like Pistis Sophia. The practice seems peculiar to this literature.]

[Footnote 61: ἀντιστοιχοῦντες, a term used in logic for “corresponding.” Simon here seems to think of the Egyptian picture of the air-god Shu, separating the Heaven Goddess Nut from the Earth God Seb, and supporting the first-named on his hands.]

[Footnote 62: So that the Supreme Being is of both sexes.]

[Footnote 63: This is the exact converse of what has just before been said about the Father containing Thought within himself.]

[Footnote 64: καταγινομένη, “descending into” (women’s forms)?]

[Footnote 65: This sentence is taken _verbatim_ from Irenæus, I, 16, 2.]

[Footnote 66: ἐπὶ τέγους, literally, “on the roof.”]

[Footnote 67: διὰ τῆς ἰδίας ἐπιγνώσεως; _per suam agnitionem_, Cr.; “thro’ his own intelligence,” Macmahon.]

[Footnote 68: Reading ἄρχοντες for the ἀρχαί of the Codex.]

[Footnote 69: This sentence also appears _verbatim_ in Irenæus, I, 16, 1.]

[Footnote 70: _i. e._ the prophets.]

[Footnote 71: The whole of this from the last quotation to the end of the section is also from Irenæus, I, 16, 2.]

[Footnote 72: What these πάρεδροι οἱ λεγομένοι were is hard to say; but one of the later documents of the _Pistis Sophia_ introduces a fiend in hell as the “Paredros Typhon.” “Assessor” or “coadjutor,” the meanings of the word in classical Greek, would here seem inappropriate.]

[Footnote 73: From the beginning of the section to here is from Irenæus, I, 16, 3.]

[Footnote 74: That is, made up this doctrine.]

[Footnote 75: C. W. King in the _Gnostics and their Remains_ (2nd ed.) thinks that the omitted word is Persia. There is evidently a _lacuna_ here, and perhaps a considerable one.]

[Footnote 76: Because his age made his pretensions to divinity absurd. The story given after this directly contradicts all ecclesiastical tradition which makes Simon perish by the fall of his demon-borne car while flying in the presence of Nero and St. Peter in the Campus Martius.]

[Footnote 77: The sources of this chapter are fairly plain. There is little reason to doubt that Hippolytus had actually seen and read a book attributed to Simon Magus and called the _Great Announcement_ from which he quotes, after his manner, inaccurately and carelessly, but still in good faith. Whether the work was by Simon himself is much more doubtful, but it was probably in use by the sect that he founded, and therefore represents with some fidelity his teaching. The style of it as appears from the extracts here given is a curious mixture of bombast and philosophical expressions, and bears a strong likeness to certain passages in the chapters in the fifth book on the Naassenes and the Peratæ. The other traceable source of the chapter is the work _Against Heresies_ of St. Irenæus, of which the quotations here given go to establish the Greek text. But intertwined with this, especially towards the end of the chapter, is a third thread of tradition, quite different from that used in the _Clementines_ and other patristic accounts of Simon’s career, which cannot at present be identified.]

[Footnote 78: With Valentinus, we leave at last the tangled genealogies and unclean imagery, as it seems to us, of the early traditions of Western Asia, to approach a form of religion which although not without fantastic features is yet much more consonant with modern European thought. Valentinus was, indeed, with the doubtful exception of Marcion, the first of heretics in the present acceptation of the term, and many features of his teaching were reproduced later in the tenets of one or other of the Christian sects. At first sight, the main difference between his doctrine and that of the Catholic Church consists in the extraordinary series of personified attributes of the Deity which he thought fit to interpose between the Supreme Being and the Saviour. This he probably borrowed either from the later Zoroastrian idea of the Amshaspands or Archangels who surround Ahura Mazda, or, more probably, from the _paut neteru_, (“company of the gods”) of the Egyptian religion of Pharaonic times; and it has been suggested elsewhere that he probably attached less importance to dogmatism on the matter than the Fathers would wish to make out. But Hippolytus’ account of his other doctrines show other divergences from the Church’s teaching both graver and wider than we should have gathered from the statements of Irenæus, Tertullian, or Epiphanius. His view of the ignorance and folly of the Demiurge seems to be taken over bodily from the Ophite teaching, and, as he identifies him by implication with the God of the Jews, must logically lead to the rejection of the whole of the Old Testament except perhaps the Psalms, Proverbs, and the historical portions. He is also as predestinarian as Calvin himself, for he assigns complete beatitude to the Pneumatics or Spirituals only, while relegating the Psychics to an inferior heaven and dooming the Hylics to complete destruction. Yet the class to which each of us is assigned has nothing to do with conduct, but is in the discretion of Sophia, the Mother of all Living.

The most marked novelty in Valentinus’ teaching, however, is the cause, according to him, of the gift of this partial salvation to man. This is not, as in the Catholic, the fruit of God’s love towards his creature, but the last stage of a great scheme for the reconstruction and purification of the whole universe. First, the Pleroma or Fulness of the Godhead is purified by the segregation from it of the Ectroma or abortion to which Sophia in her ignorance and ambition gave birth; then the Ectroma herself is freed from her passions by the action of Christ and the Holy Spirit, and made the Mother of Life; and finally this material world, the creation of the God of the Jews, is to be purged by the Divine Mission of Jesus from the gross and devilish elements introduced into it by the ignorant clumsiness of the same God of the Jews. But this theory was poles asunder from the geocentric ideas of the universe then current among Greeks, Jews, and Christians alike, and comes startlingly near the hypotheses of modern science on the very low place of the earth and humanity in the scheme of things. Whence Valentinus drew the materials from which he constructed his theory must be reserved for investigation at some future date; but it is fairly clear that some part of it was responsible for not a few of the tenets of the Manichæism which arose some hundred years later to maintain a strenuous opposition to the Catholic faith for at least nine centuries.

Finally, it may be said that Hippolytus also tells us for the first time of the divisions among Valentinus’ followers and the different parts played therein by Ptolemy, Heracleon and others, including that Bardesanes or Bar Daisan whose name was great in the East as late as Al Bîrûnî’s day.]

[Footnote 79: οὐκ ἀλόγως ὑπομνησθήσομαι.]

[Footnote 80: τὰ κορυφαιότατα τῶν αὐτοῖς ἀρεσκομένων.]

[Footnote 81: The Codex has Σολομῶν--evidently a copyist’s mistake. Cf. Plato, _Timæus_, § 7.]

[Footnote 82: Not necessarily the Supreme Being. Clement of Alexandria, _Paedagogus_, I, 8, says, “God is one, and beyond the One, and above the Monad itself.”]

[Footnote 83: A fairly common form of Zoroaster. The quotation is probably from the “Chaldean Oracles” so-called.]

[Footnote 84: Diogenes Laertius, Book VIII, c. 19 quotes from Alexander’s _Successions of Philosophers_ that Pythagoras in his Commentaries put first the monad, then the undefined dyad, and said that from these two numbers proceeded, from numbers signs, from signs lines, from lines plane figures, from planes solids, and from solids perceptible bodies consisting of the four elements, fire, water, earth and air.]

[Footnote 85: Miller would substitute νομιστέον for προστιθέμενον.]

[Footnote 86: These verses are said by Cruice to be in Sextus Empiricus, but I have not been able to find them in any known writings of that author.]

[Footnote 87: νοητά, as opposed to αἰσθητά.]

[Footnote 88: Cf. Matt. v. 18.]

[Footnote 89: These “accidents” are enumerated by Aristotle in his _Metaphysics_, Book IV, and more briefly in his _Organon_. He does not there acknowledge any indebtedness to Pythagoras.]

[Footnote 90: συνέχει.]

[Footnote 91: φιλία, not ἀγάπη. Macmahon translates “friendship.”]

[Footnote 92: _i. e._ the “Fashioner” = one who makes things out of previously existing material, but does not create them _ex nihilo_.]

[Footnote 93: διανομή, a word peculiar apparently to the Pythagoreans. Jowett translates it “regulation.”]

[Footnote 94: ἀπορῥαγάδας, a word unknown in classical Greek, which should by its etymology mean “chinks” or “rents.” I have taken it as a mistake for ἀπορῥήματα, which is found in Plutarch.]

[Footnote 95: Not Pythagoras, but Plutarch, _de Exilio_, § 11. He attributes it to Heraclitus.]

[Footnote 96: The reference seems to be to the _Phaedrus_, t. 1, p. 89 (Bekker).]

[Footnote 97: Or “practise philosophy”: but Hippolytus always uses the word with a contemptuous meaning.]

[Footnote 98: τὰς ἀρχάς. Evidently a mistake for τοὺς ἄρχοντας.]

[Footnote 99: Hippolytus in the interpretation of these sayings seems to have followed Diogenes Laertius.]

[Footnote 100: Ἀριθμητής.]

[Footnote 101: So Shu the Egyptian God of Air was figured _between_ Earth (Seb) and Heaven (Nut).]

[Footnote 102: Roeper would read τὸν μέγαν ἐνιαυτὸν ἀπεργάζεται κόσμου, “completes the Great Year of the world.”]

[Footnote 103: Ἄθηλυς, “without female.”]

[Footnote 104: Σιγή, “Silence.” Cf. the Orphic cosmogony which makes Night the Mother of Heaven and Earth by Phanes the First-born, who contains within himself the seeds of all creatures (_Forerunners_, I, 123).]

[Footnote 105: The attribution of this monistic doctrine to Valentinus is found for the first time here. Irenæus and Tertullian both make him say that Sige is the spouse of the Supreme Being.]

[Footnote 106: οὐσία. Here as elsewhere in this chapter, save where an obvious pun is intended, to be translated as in text, and not “substance,” which is generally the equivalent of ὑπόστασις.]

[Footnote 107: φιλέρημος γὰρ οὐκ ἦν.]

[Footnote 108: Νοῦν καὶ ἀλήθειαν. Here as elsewhere with the names of Aeons, the English equivalent of the Greek name is first given, and, in later repetitions, the Greek name transliterated into English.]

[Footnote 109: Λόγον καὶ Ζωήν.]

[Footnote 110: Ἄνθρωπον καὶ Ἐκκλησίαν.]

[Footnote 111: τέλειος used in its double sense of “perfect” and “complete.”]

[Footnote 112: ὁ Λογος μετὰ τῆς Ζωῆς. The curious conception by which the two partners in a syzygy are regarded as only one being is very marked throughout this passage.]

[Footnote 113: ἀγεννησία; “unbegottenness” would be a closer translation, but is uncouth in this connection. Cf. I, p. 147 _supra_.]

[Footnote 114: Βυθὸς καὶ Μίξις, Ἀγήρατος καὶ Ἕνωσις, Αὐτοφυὴς καὶ Ἡδονή, Ἀκίνητος καὶ Σύγκρασις, Μονογενὴς καὶ Μακαρία. For the first name Irenæus (I, i. 1, p. 11, Harvey), has Bythios, thereby making the substantive into an adjective. So Epiphanius, _Haer._ XXXI (p. 328, Oehler). This is doubtless correct.]

[Footnote 115: Παράκλητος καὶ Πίστις, Πατρικὸς καὶ Ἐλπίς, Μητρικὸς καὶ Ἀγάπη, Ἀείνους καὶ Σύνεσις, Ἐκκλησιαστικὸς καὶ Μακαριστός, Θελητὸς καὶ Σοφία. The Codex is here very corrupt, and for Ἀείνους we may, if we please, read Αἰώνιος, “Everlasting,” and for Μακαριστός, Μακαριότης, “Blessedness.” As the name of the male partner in each syzygy is an adjective and that of the female a substantive it is probable that the two are intended to be read together, as _e.g._ “Profound Admixture,” and the like.]

[Footnote 116: Sophia, who plays a great part in the Jewish Apocrypha, is almost certainly a figure of the prototypal earth like Spenta Armaiti, her analogue in Mazdeism. Cf. the quotation from Genesis which follows immediately.]

[Footnote 117: οὐσία. Here “substance” and “essence” would have the same meaning, and the first-named word is used only to avoid ambiguity.]

[Footnote 118: Gen. i. 2.]

[Footnote 119: Exod. xxxiii. 3.]

[Footnote 120: Ἔκτρωμα.]

[Footnote 121: Ἐπιπροβληθεὶς οὖν ὁ Χριστὸς καὶ τὸ Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα. Christ and the Holy Spirit are therefore treated as a syzygy and, as it were, a single person.]

[Footnote 122: μονογενές.]

[Footnote 123: τὸ ὑστέρημα: “the Void,” the converse and opposite of the Pleroma or “Fulness.”]

[Footnote 124: For this Platonic theory of “partaking,” see n. on I, p. 53 _supra_.]

[Footnote 125: So that the first work of the Mission of Jesus was the freeing of the whole universe--not only our earth--from the evil which had entered into it.]

[Footnote 126: ὑποστάτους οὐσίας; “underlying beings.” Here we have the two ideas of hypostasis, or “substance” in its etymological meaning, and “essence,” or “being,” side by side.]

[Footnote 127: ψυχικὴν οὐσίαν, _i. e._ the stuff of which the soul is made.]

[Footnote 128: Ps. cxi. 10; Prov. i. 7; ii. 10.]

[Footnote 129: That is Jehovah, the God of the Jews. Hebdomad as including the seven “planets.”]

[Footnote 130: Deut. ix. 3.]

[Footnote 131: The “below,” Ὑποκάτω, and “above,” ὑπεράνω, seem to have become inverted; but as I am not sure whether this is the scribe’s mistake or not, I have left the text as it is. If we consider (as we must) that the heaven of Sophia is the highest and those of the seven worlds below it like steps of a ladder, we have the conception of Sophia, her son Jaldabaoth, and his six sons, current among the Ophites as shown in Book V above. The figure of Sophia as a “day” is at once an instance of the curious habit among the Gnostics of confusing time and space, and an allusion to the O.T. name of “Ancient of Days.”]

[Footnote 132: I have sought to show elsewhere (_P.S.B.A._, 1901, pp. 48, 49) in opposition to the current explanations that this name, properly written Beelzebuth, is at once a sort of parody of Jabezebuth or “Jehovah (Lord) of Hosts,” and the name given to the “ruler of demons” by the parallelism which, as in Zoroastrianism, makes each good spirit have its evil counterpart of similar name.]

[Footnote 133: προβεβήκασιν. So in Homer (_Iliad_, VI, 125). Cruice translates “provenerunt,” Macmahon reading apparently προβεβλήκασιν, “there has been projected.”]

[Footnote 134: Gen. ii. 7.]

[Footnote 135: 1 Cor. ii. 14. In the preceding passage taken apparently from Eph. iii. 14 either the Gnostic author or Hippolytus has taken some strange liberties with the received Text, which see.]

[Footnote 136: It is plain, therefore, that the Valentinians rejected these parts of the O.T.]

[Footnote 137: John x. 8.]

[Footnote 138: The τὸ μυστήριον τὸ ἀποκεκρυμμένον ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν γενεῶν of Coloss. 1. 26 seems to be what is aimed at.]

[Footnote 139: ἅτε δὴ ἀπὸ τοῦ Δημιουργοῦ λελαλημένα; “inasmuch as they certainly had been uttered by the Demiurge alone,” Macmahon.]

[Footnote 140: τέλος ἔλαβεν, “received the finishing touch.”]

[Footnote 141: διὰ Μαρίας τῆς Παρθένου. A manifest allusion to the well-known Gnostic doctrine that Jesus took nothing from His Mother but came into being through her ὡς διὰ σωλῆνος, “as through a pipe or conduit.”]

[Footnote 142: Luke i. 35. Ὕψιστος, “the Highest,” was according to M. Camont (Suppl. _Rev. instr. publ. en Belgique_, 1897) the name by which the God of Israel was known throughout Asia Minor in pre-Christian times.]

[Footnote 143: καὶ τοῦ Ὑψίστου. These words are not in the Codex.]

[Footnote 144: τὴν δὲ οὐσίαν ... παράσχῃ. Again “essence” would etymologically be the better word, but “substance” is used as more familiar to the English reader.]

[Footnote 145: διδασκαλία. It is significant of the position held by Valentinus’ teaching in the Christian community that the Valentinians are often spoken of by the Fathers as a school of thought rather than a schismatic Church like that founded by Marcion.]

[Footnote 146: γέγωνε τῷ ψυχικῷ. So in Manichæism, the Living Spirit goes towards the Land of Darkness, where the First Man is entombed after his defeat by Satan, and “cries in a loud voice, and this voice was like a sharp sword and discovered the form of the First Man,” who is thereupon drawn up out of the Darkness and raised to the upper spheres where dwells the Mother of Life. Cf. _Forerunners_, II, pp. 294, 300, n. 1, and 302, n. 1, and Theodore bar Khôni and other authors there quoted.]

[Footnote 147: Rom. viii. 11; the words in brackets are not in the received text.]

[Footnote 148: Gen. iii. 19.]

[Footnote 149: So Cruice. Miller’s text has Ἀρδησιάνης.]

[Footnote 150: ἡ δημιουργικὴ τέχνη, “the process of fashioning.”]

[Footnote 151: διώρθωτο. So that Valentinus was the first to advance the theory which we find later among the Manichæans that this earth of ours, instead of being the centre of the universe, was in fact the lowest and most insignificant of all the worlds, and that salvation only came to it after the greater universe had been reformed--an extraordinary conception on the part of one who must have held, like his contemporaries, geocentric views in astronomy.]

[Footnote 152: Ex. vi. 2, 3.]

[Footnote 153: κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἀκολουθίαν. Here as elsewhere in the text, ἀκολουθία has the meaning of imitation.]

[Footnote 154: ἰσόζυγος.]

[Footnote 155: ἐπανόρθωσιν, “re-rectification”!]

[Footnote 156: What follows is from Plato’s Second Epistle, which is thought to have been written after Plato’s return from his third voyage to Syracuse, and is perhaps rather less suspect than the other Platonic epistles. Yet the chances of interpolation are so great that no stress can be laid on the genuineness of any particular passage.]

[Footnote 157: This passage alone is sufficient to make one doubtful as to the Platonic authorship. If Plato really wanted to keep his doctrine secret, the last thing he would have done would be to call the attention of the chance reader to the fact.]

[Footnote 158: Burges translates: “But about a second are the secondary things and about a third the third.”]

[Footnote 159: Nearly two pages are here omitted from the Epistle.]

[Footnote 160: Possibly an allusion to the Platonic theory that all learning is remembrance.]

[Footnote 161: Τὰ δὲ νῦν λεγόμενα Σωκράτους. “Said of him” or “said by him”? The passage is quoted by the Emperor Julian and by Aristides.]

[Footnote 162: So that Hippolytus’ attempt to show that Valentinus plagiarized from Plato resolves itself into an imaginative interpretation of a purposely obscure passage in an epistle which is only doubtfully assigned to Plato. That Valentinus like every one educated in the Greek learning was influenced by Plato is likely enough, but that there was any conscious borrowing of tenets is against probability.]

[Footnote 163: προαρχή τῶν ὅλων Αἰώνων.]

[Footnote 164: That Valentinus is said to have written psalms, see Tertullian, _de Carne Christi_, I, c. xvii, xx, t. ii, pp. 453, 457 (Oehl.).]

[Footnote 165: Of the sources from which the author of the _Philosophumena_ drew this account of Valentinus’ doctrine, much has been written. Hilgenfeld in his _Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums_, and Lipsius in the article “Valentinus” in Smith & Wace’s _D.C.B._, agree that its main source is the writings of Heracleon. Cruice, _Études sur les Philosophumena_, on the other hand, thinks it largely composed of extracts from a work of Valentinus himself, entitled _Sophia_. Salmon (_Hermathena_, 1885, p. 391), while not committing himself to a definite pronouncement as to the writer quoted, says that Hippolytus undoubtedly quoted from a genuine Valentinian treatise, and that this last is above the suspicion of forgery with which he is inclined to view other quotations in the _Philosophumena_.]

[Footnote 166: The notice of the followers, real or supposed, of Valentinus which occupies the remainder of Book VI adds little to our previous knowledge of their doctrines, being taken almost _verbatim_ from the work of Hippolytus’ teacher, St. Irenæus. It is noteworthy, however, that although the Table of Contents promises us an account of (among others) Heracleon, nothing is here said of him, although that shrewd critic of the Gospels was thought worthy of refutation by Origen some fifty years later. Yet Hippolytus mentions Heracleon as being with Ptolemy a leader of the Italic School of Valentinians which seems to dispose of the theory advanced by Lipsius (Smith & Wace’s _D.C.B._, s. v. “Valentinus”) that Heracleon was the author from whom Hippolytus took his account of Valentinus’ own doctrine. Of Secundus nothing more is known than is set down in the text, while the “Epiphanes” here mentioned is thought by some to be not a name, but an adjective, so that the passage would read “a certain _illustrious_ teacher of theirs.” This was certainly the reading of Irenæus’ Latin translator, who renders the word by “_clarus_.” Is this a roundabout way of describing Heracleon? As to this see Salmon in _D.C.B._, s. v. “Heracleon.”]

[Footnote 167: ἀποστᾶσαν καὶ ὑστερήσασαν. Evidently Sophia is meant.]

[Footnote 168: ἀρχή.]

[Footnote 169: Μονότης.]

[Footnote 170: Ἑνότης.]

[Footnote 171: προήκαντο μὴ προέμεναι, _protulerunt non proferendo ex se_, Cr. So Irenæus, I, xi. 3, p. 104, H. In his note Harvey says that the passage implies that Henotes and Monotes “put forth as the original cause the _Beginning_, but so as that the _Beginning_ was eternally inseparable from their unity.”]

[Footnote 172: Irenæus makes ὁ λόγος, “the Word,” the speaker. So Tertullian, _adv. Val._, “_quod sermo vocat_.” But it seems more natural to refer the speech to Epiphanes or “the Illustrious Teacher.”]

[Footnote 173: Προαρχή, Ἀνεννόητος, Ἄρῥητος and Ἀόρατος. The three first names, however, are not in the text but are restored from Irenæus, I, v. 2, p. 105, H.]

[Footnote 174: These four new names are: Ἀρχή, Ἀκατάληπτος, Ἀνωνόμαστος and Ἀγέννητος.]

[Footnote 175: Of Ptolemy we know a little more than we do of Secundus, a letter by him to his “fair sister Flora” being given by Epiphanius (_Haer._ XXXIII.) which shows a system not inconsistent with that described in the text. Unlike Valentinus himself he gives the Father a spouse, or rather two.]

[Footnote 176: διαθέσεις, perhaps “states.” Cr. and Macmahon translate “dispositions.”]

[Footnote 177: Hippolytus here suddenly changes from Thelesis to Thelema. But there is no discoverable difference in the meaning of the two words.]

[Footnote 178: Words in [ ] from Irenæus.]

[Footnote 179: This Marcus is practically only known to us from the statements of Irenæus, from which the accounts in the text and in the later work of Epiphanius are copied. Salmon’s argument (_D.C.B._, s. v. “Marcus”) that Marcus taught in Asia Minor or Syria, and that Irenæus himself only knew his doctrines from his writings and the confessions of his Gaulish followers on their conversion to Catholicism seems irrefutable. There is no reason to doubt Irenæus’ statement here repeated that Marcus was a magician, nor the generally accepted statement of modern writers on Gnosticism that he was a Jew. This last deduction is supported by his use of Hebrew formulas, of which Irenæus gives many examples, including one beginning “βασημαχαμοσση” which appears to be “In the name of Achamoth,” the Hebrew or Aramaic equivalent of the Greek Sophia. A more cogent argument is that his identification of the Gnostic Aeons with the letters of the Greek alphabet and their numerical values is, _mutatis mutandis_, exactly correspondent to that of the so-called “practical Cabala” of the Jews which was re-introduced into Europe in the tenth to twelfth centuries, but which probably goes back to pre-Christian times and is ultimately derived from the decayed relics of the Chaldæan and Egyptian religions. On the other hand, Irenæus’ classing of Marcus among the “successors” or followers of Valentinus is much more open to question. The reverence he shows for the books of the Old Testament and for the Pentateuchal account of the Creation, which is indeed the foundation of the greater part of the system of the Cabala, is inconsistent with the views of Valentinus, who as we have seen (n. on p. 33 _supra_) must logically have rejected the inspiration of the Old Testament altogether. St. Jerome (Ep. 75, _ad Theod._, I, 449), says indeed that Marcus was a Basilidian, and although we have too little of Basilides’ own writings to check this statement, it is not impossible that the nomenclature of the Aeons, which is the chief point in which Valentinus and Marcus coincide, was common to all three heretics, and perhaps drawn from a source earlier than them all. The language of the formulas given by Irenæus but not reproduced by Hippolytus, in several instances bear a strong likeness to that of the _Great Announcement_ attributed in the earlier part of this Book to Simon Magus.]

[Footnote 180: εὺχαριστῶν.]

[Footnote 181: αἱματώδη δύναμιν, “the potentiality of blood”?]

[Footnote 182: ἐλεγχόμενος. The word shows that by “refutation” the author generally means “exposure.”]

[Footnote 183: He has not done so, unless in some part which has been lost.]

[Footnote 184: ἐδίδου.]

[Footnote 185: Γνῶσις.]

[Footnote 186: ὑγραῖς οὐσίαις. Here οὐσία is used in the English sense of “substance.” No such substances are mentioned in Book IV as it has come down to us.]

[Footnote 187: The wine used in the Marcosian Eucharist was evidently _mixtum_, not _merum_. Some effervescent powder is indicated.]

[Footnote 188: ἐξαφανίσας; Cr. translates _seduxit_.]

[Footnote 189: εὐκόλους ... πρὸς τὸ ἁμαρτάνειν. Cf. the doctrine of certain Antinomian sects that “God sees no sin in His elect.”]

[Footnote 190: Ἀπολύτρωσις, perhaps “Ransom.”]

[Footnote 191: πανούργημα.]

[Footnote 192: In one of the documents of the _Pistis Sophia_, (p. 238, Copt) a “mystery” to be spoken “into the two ears” of an initiate about to die is described. The idea was evidently to provide him with a password which would enable him to escape the “punishments” of the intermediate state, and is to be traced to Egyptian beliefs.]

[Footnote 193: ἐπ’ ἐσχάτων, perhaps “to the utmost.”]

[Footnote 194: ἀφορμαί. In the _Philosophumena_, the word nearly always bears this construction.]

[Footnote 195: οἱ ἐντυχόντες.]

[Footnote 196: ἀεὶ ἀρνεῖσθαι. Cf. the “_Geist der stets verneint_” of Goethe.]

[Footnote 197: συγκεχωρήσθω.]

[Footnote 198: “His attempted heresy.”]

[Footnote 199: Like the rest of this section and most of this chapter, Hippolytus here follows Irenæus _verbatim_. Why the apparition of the Tetrad should be more supportable in female than in male shape can only be guessed; but the frequent personification of the Great Goddess of Western Asia may have had something to do with it.]

[Footnote 200: οὗ πατὴρ οὐδεὶς ἦν, “whose father was no one”--a curious expression in place of the more concise ἀπάτωρ.]

[Footnote 201: καὶ ἦν ἡ συλλαβὴ αὐτοῦ στοιχείων τεσσάρων, “and taken together it was of four letters.” He is punning here on the double sense of στοιχεῖον as meaning both “letter” and “element.” In the Magic Papyrus of Leyden which calls itself “Monas, the 8th (book?) of Moses,” there is a curious account of how the light and the rest of creation were brought into being by the successive words or rather the laughter of the Creator. Cf. Leemans, _Papyri Græci_, etc., Leyden, 1885, II, pp. 83 ff.]

[Footnote 202: γράμματα.]

[Footnote 203: χαρακτῆρα, “impress,” or character as we might say Greek characters or script. The different meanings of στοιχεῖα, γράμματα, and χαρακτήρ are here well marked.]

[Footnote 204: So Irenæus.]

[Footnote 205: τὴν ἀποκατάστασιν. This Return to the Deity was, as has been shown above, the great preoccupation of all these Gnostic sects. They may have borrowed it from the Stoic philosophy. Cf. Arnold, _Roman Stoicism_, p. 193.]

[Footnote 206: The primitive Church attributed great power to the ritual utterance of the word Amen. Thus Ignatius’ second Epistle to the Ephesians: “There was hidden from the ruler of this world the virginity of Mary, and the birth of our Lord, and the three mysteries of the shout ... and hereby ... magic began to be dissolved and all bonds to be loosed and the ancient kingdom and the error of evil, is destroyed” (Cureton’s translation, London, 1845, p. 15); but Lightfoot would read κήροξις, “proclamation,” for κραυγή, “shout.” In the _Pistis Sophia_ the word Amen is used to denote a class of Powers concerned apparently with the organization of the Kerasmos or semi-material world and called sometimes “the Three” and sometimes “the Seven Amens.”]

[Footnote 207: τοὺς [φθόγγους]. The word in brackets is not in the Codex, but is supplied from the corresponding passage in Irenæus.]

[Footnote 208: πρόσωπον, a word which, as Hatch noted, is used for the character or part played by an actor in a drama. Matt. xviii. 10 is here evidently alluded to.]

[Footnote 209: Cf. the Stoic theory of λόγοι σπερματικοί or “seed-Powers,” for which, see Arnold, _op. cit._, p. 161.]

[Footnote 210: προήκατο.]

[Footnote 211: That is to say, before Chaos was organized and the Aeons brought into existence.]

[Footnote 212: A plain reference to the Ectroma or Sophia Without.]

[Footnote 213: ἰδίᾳ τῶν γραμμάτων γραφέντων (Miller). The Codex has διὰ for ἰδίᾳ and γραφέντος for γραφέντων. Cruice bungles the passage and Macmahon omits it. It is not found in Irenæus.]

[Footnote 214: _e. g._ the δ can be written δ, ε, λ, τ, α.]

[Footnote 215: ὑπόστασις.]

[Footnote 216: A pun on the name of the Supreme Father, Bythos or the Deep.]

[Footnote 217: φιλοπονία and ματαιοπονία.]

[Footnote 218: Or Truth.]

[Footnote 219: _i. e._ Man.]

[Footnote 220: It would seem from this that Marcus, following perhaps in this the Anatolic School of Valentinus, made Sige not the spouse of Bythos but merely another name for Aletheia.]

[Footnote 221: τῆς διανοίας νόημα. As if he were trying to avoid writing the word Nous.]

[Footnote 222: Hippolytus or Marcus here plays upon the identity of the ἐπίσημον or digamma, the name of the sixth letter in the Greek alphabet, which was used for numeration only, and the adjective ἐπίσημον, “illustrious.”]

[Footnote 223: The word in brackets supplied from Irenæus.]

[Footnote 224: ὧν τὰ μεγέθη. The allusion seems to be again to Matt. xviii. 10. The angels might well be considered on the Valentinian theory the greater parts or counterparts of their terrestrial spouses. In Epiphanius τὸ Μέγεθος seems to be used for the Supreme Being. Cf. _Panar. Haer._, XXXI, p. 314, Oehl. The passage is said to be suspect.]

[Footnote 225: One of the later documents of the _Pistis Sophia_ speaks repeatedly of certain τριδυναμεις or τριδυναμοι (both spellings are used) which seem to hold a very exalted rank in the scale of beings, alike in the spiritual and the material parts of the universe.]

[Footnote 226: φ, χ, θ, η, κ, τ, β, γ, δ.]

[Footnote 227: λ, μ, ν, ρ, ς, ζ, ξ, ψ.]

[Footnote 228: τὰ φωνήεντα.]

[Footnote 229: α, ε, η, ι, ο, υ, ω.]

[Footnote 230: μορφὴν αὐτοῖς περιεποίησεν, “has put shape round them.”]

[Footnote 231: Reading Ἐπειδὴ with Irenæus instead of the Ἐπὶ δὲ of Hippolytus.]

[Footnote 232: So that the “ineffable” name of Christ consisted of 30 letters. So Epiphanius, _Haer._, XXXIV, p. 448, Oehl. No guess hitherto made as to its transliteration into Greek letters seems entirely satisfactory; but Harvey (_Iren._, I, p. 146, nn. 1, 2), shows that χὶ, ρὼ, εἴψιλον (for which spelling Nigidius Figulus and Aulus Gellius are quoted), ἰῶτα, σῖγμα, ταῦ, οὐ (for ὀμικρόν), and, again, σῖγμα, can be made to count 30.]

[Footnote 233: The text has ἀναλογίας, for which Miller rightly restores οἰκονομίας from Irenæus. Cf. p. 318 Cr. _infra_.]

[Footnote 234: πεφηνέναι. Irenæus has πεφυκέναι, “grew.”]

[Footnote 235: See the Transfiguration according to Matt. xvii. and Mark ix.]

[Footnote 236: Or “the Episemon.”]

[Footnote 237: π = 80, ε 5, ρ 100, ι 10, σ 200, τ 300, ε 5, ρ 100, α 1 = 801. So Α 1 + Ω 800 = 801.]

[Footnote 238: Ἡ παρασκευή. “The Preparation” (for the Passover) _i. e._ Friday.]

[Footnote 239: τὸν τῶν ἕξ ἀριθμὸν, δύναμιν ποιήσεως κτλ. So Irenæus’ Latin translation, “_Scientem eum numerum qui est sex virtutem fabricationis et regenerationem habentem_.”]

[Footnote 240: 6 + 24 = 30.]

[Footnote 241: τῆς αὐτοβουλήτου βουλῆς ... ὁ καρπός, “the Fruit of the self-counselled Council,” Irenæus.]

[Footnote 242: μιμήσει τὴς Ἑβδομάδος δυνάμεως ἐψύχωσε κόσμον, “imparted in imitation of the seven powers animation to this world,” (Macmahon); but see Irenæus in _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 243: As before, this probably means “Desire.”]

[Footnote 244: This seems the first time we meet with the idea of “The Column of Praises” of the Manichæans which mounting from the earth and bearing with it the prayers and praises of mankind plays with them a considerable part in the redemption of Light from Matter.]

[Footnote 245: Ps. viii. 2.]

[Footnote 246: Ps. xix. 1.]

[Footnote 247: Irenæus puts what follows into the mouth of “the all-wise Sige.” A section dealing with the name of Aletheia is omitted by Hippolytus.]

[Footnote 248: Or perhaps “Unity in Solitude.”]

[Footnote 249: _i. e._ “Ineffable.”]

[Footnote 250: Four, unless we spell the word as he apparently does, Σειγή.]

[Footnote 251: In the section omitted (see n. 2 _supra_) the “body of Aletheia” is said to be δωδεκάμελος or “of 12 members,” which points to some different notation.]

[Footnote 252: Cf. Rev. xix. 11-13.]

[Footnote 253: As Harvey (_Iren._, I, p. 145, n. 3) points out, this forced isopsephism is only reached by spelling Eta ηι and the Iota in Χριστός εἶ. He quotes Aulus Gellius in support.]

[Footnote 254: The words in brackets ( ) are not in Irenæus and are probably the addition of some commentator.]

[Footnote 255: The Codex has χρι.]

[Footnote 256: π = 80, ε = 5, ρ = 100, ι = 10, σ = 200, τ = 300, ε = 5, ρ = 100, α = 1: total 801. It is evident, therefore that Marcus considered Christ and the Holy Spirit to be the same Person.]

[Footnote 257: ἄρῥητον γένεσιν, “unspoken derivation”?]

[Footnote 258: δεκαοκτώ, an unusual word, unknown to classical Greek.]

[Footnote 259: Words in square brackets [ ] supplied from Irenæus.]

[Footnote 260: δημιουργία. Here, as elsewhere, the word implies construction from previously existing matter.]

[Footnote 261: τὸν τόπον ἀναπεπληρωκέναι.]

[Footnote 262: Cf. Luke i. 35.]

[Footnote 263: κατ’ οἰκονομίαν. This seems here the meaning of the word. See Döllinger, _First Age of Christianity_, Eng. ed., p. 170, n. 2, Hatch; _Influence of Greek Ideas upon the Christian Church_, p. 131; Tollinton, _Clement of Alexandria_, II, p. 13, and n. 1, for other meanings.]

[Footnote 264: This seems unintelligible unless we suppose the “body of Aletheia,” said above to be the number 12, to be the heaven known as “the Place of Truth.” Cf. _Pistis Sophia_, p. 128, Copt.]

[Footnote 265: The same expression is used in the _Pistis Sophia_ where Jesus “sows” a power of light in Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist. Cf. p. 12, Copt.]

[Footnote 266: Or “Arrangement.” Marcus, perhaps here imitating Valentinus, postulates several Saviours, one of whom restores order in the arrangement of the Aeons before coming to this earth.]

[Footnote 267: In Irenæus there follows here a lengthy “refutation” of Marcus’ doctrines and a poem condemning him and his teaching which some think to be the work of Pothinus, Irenæus’ martyred predecessor at Lyons.]

[Footnote 268: With this sentence, Hippolytus again picks up his quotations from Irenæus.]

[Footnote 269: πάθος, “a passion” or “The Passion”?]

[Footnote 270: πεπλανῆσθαι.]

[Footnote 271: Irenæus’ Latin version here makes better sense:--_Similiter et a duodecade abscedentum unam virtutem perisse divinant et hanc esse mulierem quae perdiderit drachmam, et accenderit lucernam, et invenerit eam._]

[Footnote 272: α = 1, μ 40, η 8, ν 50, total 99. Writers of the sub-Apostolic age seem to have laid much stress on the miraculous power of the word Amen when uttered in unison. Cf. the Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians (Cureton’s translation), p. 15, as to the “mysteries of the shout.”]

[Footnote 273: Thus α = 1, β 2, γ 3, δ 4, ε 5, ζ 7, η 8 = 30.]

[Footnote 274: εἰς ὁλόκληρον. Because the decad is a “perfect” number.]

[Footnote 275: ἐπισυμπλέκοντες καὶ δεκαπλασιάσαντες.]

[Footnote 276: τῆς ἄνω οἰκονομίας. The word can here mean nothing else.]

[Footnote 277: α = 1, β 2, γ 3, δ 4, ε 5, ζ 7, η 8, θ 9, ι 10, κ 20, λ 30 = 99.]

[Footnote 278: Because the Episemon has no τόπος.]

[Footnote 279: στοιχεῖον here used for “character.”]

[Footnote 280: ΛΛ = M.]

[Footnote 281: ὑστέρημα; the usual Gnostic name for the Void.]

[Footnote 282: This section passes over Irenæus’ refutation of the last, and forms the beginning of the Xth Chap. (p. 164, H.).]

[Footnote 283: There must be some mistake here, as the Sun and Moon were included among the seven planetary heavens.]

[Footnote 284: Not of course the Egyptian god, but the Gnostic “Limit” or Cross. The passage is not very clear.]

[Footnote 285: Irenæus has φαεινῆς, “radiant,” and the text κενῆς, “empty”; Irenæus’ Latin version “_non apparentes_” or invisible. Probably μεγάλης was the original word.]

[Footnote 286: κατὰ κάθετον. Macmahon thinks this refers to the position of the sun, which is unnecessary.]

[Footnote 287: Irenæus omits the words “of the Ogdoad.”]

[Footnote 288: κατάλυσιν λαβεῖν, “receive dissolution.”]

[Footnote 289: καινότερα. The text has κενώτερα, “more inane.”]

[Footnote 290: περιεργίας, “bye-work.”]

[Footnote 291: Κολάρβασος. The name which is repeated by Tertullian, Philaster and Theodoret can be traced back to the single passage in Irenæus, where it appears in connection with the name Σιγή as “the Sige of Colarbasus.” A German commentator long since suggested that it was not the name of a brother heretic or follower of Marcus, but a corruption of the words קל־ארבע Qol-Arba, or the “Voice of the Four,” and this seems now generally accepted. As most if not all of Marcus’ pretended revelations are said to have been dictated to him by an apparition of the Supreme Tetrad, he may well have called the book in which they were written and which seems to have been known to Irenæus, by some such name.]

[Footnote 292: It seems needless to point out that the whole of these chapters dealing with the real or supposed successors of Valentinus is taken direct from Irenæus, and that they have no relation to any other author.]

[Sidenote: p. 333.] BOOK VII

BASILIDES, SATURNILUS, AND OTHERS

1. These are the contents of the 7th (Book) of the _Refutation of All Heresies_.

2. What is the opinion of Basilides, and that he, having been struck with the doctrines of Aristotle, constructed his heresy from them.

3. And what things Satornilus, who flourished at the same time as Basilides, says.

4. How Menander set himself to declare that the world came into being by angels.

5. What was the madness of Marcion, and that his doctrine is neither new nor (taken) from the Holy Scriptures, but comes from Empedocles.

6. How Carpocrates talks foolishness, and thinks existing things to have been produced by angels.

7. That Cerinthus in no way framed his opinion from Scripture, but out of the teachings of the Egyptians.

[Sidenote: p. 334.] 8. What are the Ebionites’ opinions, and that they prefer to cleave to the Jewish customs.

9. How Theodotus also erred, having borrowed some things from the Ebionites [but others from the Gnostics].

10. And what was taught by Cerdo, who both declared things (taken) from Empedocles and wickedly put forward Marcion.

11. And how Lucian, becoming a disciple of Marcion, did not blush to blaspheme God.

12. Of whom Apelles becoming a disciple, did not teach the same things as (the rest of) the school, but being moved by the doctrines of the physicists, supposed an essence for the universe.

1. _About Basilides._[1]

[Sidenote: p. 335.] 13. Seeing that the doctrines of the heretics are like a sea lashed into waves by the force of the winds, their hearers ought to sail through them in quest of the calm harbour. For such a sea is both wild and hard to overpass, as the Sicilian (sea) is said to be, wherein are fabled to be Cyclops and Charybdis and Scylla and ... the Sirens’ rock.[2] Which sea the Greek poets make out that Odysseus sailed through, skilfully availing himself of the terror of those fierce beasts: for their cruelty to those sailing among them was notorious. But the Sirens, singing clearly and musically for the beguiling of those sailing past, persuaded with their sweet voices those who listened to approach them. And they say that Odysseus, hearing this, stopped with wax his companions’ ears, but having had himself bound to the mast sailed without danger past the Sirens while listening to their song. Which I advise those who meet with them to do, and either having on account of weakness stopped their ears with wax to sail through the teachings of the heretics without listening to what, like the shrill song of the Sirens, might easily persuade them to pleasure; or else to bind themselves to the Cross of Christ, hearkening faithfully (to Him) and (thus) not to be harassed, being persuaded (only) by Him to whom they [Sidenote: p. 336.] are bound and standing upright.[3]

14. Since now we have set forth in the six Books before this, the (opinions) which have gone before, it seems now that we should not keep silent about those of Basilides which are those of Aristotle the Stagirite, and not of Christ. But although the doctrines of Aristotle have been before expounded, we shall not shrink from now setting them forth in epitome, so that the teacher by their closer comparison may readily perceive that the sophisms of Basilides are those of Aristotle.

15. Aristotle, then, divides being[4] into three. For one part of it is genus, another, as he says, species,[5] and another something undivided.[6] But the atom is so called, not because [Sidenote: p. 337.] of the smallness of its body, but because by its nature it can in no way be cut. But the genus is, as it were, a heap composed of many different seeds. From which heap-resembling genus, all the species of existent things are severed;[7] and it is (one) genus which is sufficient for all things which have come into being. In order that this may be clear, I will point out an example whereby the whole theory of the Peripatetic can be retraced.

16. Let us say that there exists simply “animal,”[8] not any particular animal. This “animal” is neither ox, nor horse, nor man, nor god, nor anything else that can anyhow be apparent, but simply “animal.” From this “animal” the species of all animals have their substance.[9] And the undifferentiated[10] “animal” is the substance of the animals who have been produced in species[11] but is yet none of them. For an animal is man, who takes his beginning [Sidenote: p. 338.] from that “animal,” and an animal is horse who does likewise. The horse and ox and dog and each of the other animals takes its beginning from the simple “animal” which is none of them.

17. But if that “animal” is not one of these, (then) the substance of the things which have been produced has, according to Aristotle, come into being from the things which are not: for the “animal” whence these have severally received it is not one (of them). But, while being none (of them), it has become the one beginning of things which are. But who it is who has sent down this beginning[12] of the things which have been produced later, we shall see when we come to its proper place.

18. Since the threefold essence is, as he says, genus, species and atom, and we have granted[13] “animal” to be genus, and man to be species already differentiated from the multitude of animals, but at the same time commingled with them and not yet transformed into a species of substantial being,[14]--I, when I give form to the man taken apart from the genus, call him by the name of Socrates [Sidenote: p. 339.] or of Diogenes or any one of the many names (there are), and when I (thus) restrict with a name the man who from genus has become species, I call such being an individual.[15] For the genus is divided into species and the species into an atom; but the atom when restricted by a name cannot by its nature be divided into anything else, as we have divided each of the things aforesaid.

This Aristotle calls essence in its first, chief, and strictest sense, nor is it said of any subject nor as existing in any subject.[16] But he speaks of the subject as if it were genus when he said “animal” of all the animals severally ranged under it, such as an ox, a horse, and the rest, describing them by a common name. For it is true to say that man is an animal, and a horse is an animal and an ox is an animal and all the rest. This is subjective, the one (name) being likewise capable of being said of many [Sidenote: p. 340.] and different species.[17] For neither a horse nor an ox differs from man _quâ_ animal; for the definition of animal fits all the aforesaid animals alike. For what is an animal? If we define it, a common definition will include all the animals. For an animal is a living,[18] feeling being, such as a man, a horse and all the rest. But, “in the Subject,” he says, is that which exists in anything, not as part of it, but as being incapable of existing apart from that wherein it is, (and is) each[19] of the accidents of being. The which is called Quality because by it we say _what_ certain things are, as, for instance, white, green, black, just, unjust, prudent and such like. But none of these (qualities) can come into being by itself, but must needs be in[20] something. But, if neither the “animal,” which is the word I use for all living beings taken severally, nor the “accidents” which are found to occur in all of them, can come into being of themselves, then from those things which do not exist, the individual things[21] are developed and the triply-divided essence is not compounded[22] from other things. Hence Being[23] so called in its first and chiefest and strictest sense, [Sidenote: p. 341.] exists according to Aristotle from those things which do not exist.[24]