TRANSLATIONS OF CHRISTIAN LITERATURE

SERIES I
GREEK TEXTS

PHILOSOPHUMENA

OR THE

REFUTATION OF ALL HERESIES

PHILOSOPHUMENA

OR THE

REFUTATION OF ALL HERESIES

FORMERLY ATTRIBUTED TO ORIGEN, BUT
NOW TO HIPPOLYTUS, BISHOP AND
MARTYR, WHO FLOURISHED
ABOUT 220 A.D.

TRANSLATED FROM THE TEXT OF CRUICE

BY

F. LEGGE, F.S.A.

VOL. I.

LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1921

Printed in Great Britain by
Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
paris garden, stamford st., s.e. 1,
and bungay, suffolk.

CONTENTS

PHILOSOPHUMENA

INTRODUCTION

1. The Text, its Discovery, Publication and Editions

The story of the discovery of the book here translated so resembles a romance as to appear like a flower in the dry and dusty field of patristic lore. A short treatise called Philosophumena, or “Philosophizings,” had long been known, four early copies of it being in existence in the Papal and other libraries of Rome, Florence and Turin. The superscriptions of these texts and a note in the margin of one of them caused the treatise to be attributed to Origen, and its Edito princeps is that published in 1701 at Leipzig by Fabricius with notes by the learned Gronovius. As will be seen later, it is by itself of no great importance to modern scholars, as it throws no new light on the history or nature of Greek philosophy, while it is mainly compiled from some of those epitomes of philosophic opinion current in the early centuries of our era, of which the works of Diogenes Laertius and Aetius are the best known. In the year 1840, however, Mynoïdes Mynas, a learned Greek, was sent by Abel Villemain, then Minister of Public Instruction in the Government of Louis Philippe, on a voyage of discovery to the monasteries of Mt. Athos, whence he returned with, among other things, the MS. of the last seven books contained in these volumes. This proved on investigation to be Books IV to X inclusive of the original work of which the text published by Fabricius was Book I, and therefore left only Books II and III to be accounted for. The pagination of the MS. shows that the two missing books never formed part of it; but the author’s remarks at the end of Books I and IX, and the beginning of Books V and X[1] lead one to conclude that if they ever existed they must have dealt with the Mysteries and secret rites of the Egyptians, or rather of the Alexandrian Greeks,[2] with the theologies and cosmogonies of the Persians and Chaldæans, and with the magical practices and incantations of the Babylonians. Deeply interesting as these would have been from the archæological and anthropological standpoint, we perhaps need not deplore their loss overmuch. The few references made to them in the remainder of the work go to show that here too the author had no very profound acquaintance with, or first-hand knowledge of, his subject, and that the scanty information that he had succeeded in collecting regarding it was only thrown in by him as an additional support for his main thesis. This last, which is steadily kept in view throughout the book, is that the peculiar tenets and practices of the Gnostics and other heretics of his time were not derived from any misinterpretation of the Scriptures, but were a sort of amalgam of those current among the heathen with the opinions held by the philosophers[3] as to the origin of all things.

The same reproach of scanty information cannot be brought against the books discovered by Mynas. Book IV, four pages at the beginning of which have perished, deals with the arts of divination as practised by the arithmomancers, astrologers, magicians and other charlatans who infested Rome in the first three centuries of our era; and the author’s account, which the corruption of the text makes rather difficult to follow, yet gives us a new and unexpected insight into the impostures and juggleries by which they managed to bewilder their dupes. Books V to IX deal in detail with the opinions of the heretics themselves, and differ from the accounts of earlier heresiologists by quoting at some length from the once extensive Gnostic literature, of which well-nigh the whole has been lost to us.[4] Thus, our author gives us excerpts from a work called the Great Announcement, attributed by him to Simon Magus, from another called Proastii used by the sect of the Peratæ, from the Paraphrase of Seth in favour with the Sethiani, from the Baruch of one Justinus, a heresiarch hitherto unknown to us, and from a work by an anonymous writer belonging to the Naassenes or Ophites, which is mainly a Gnostic explanation of the hymns used in the worship of Cybele.[5] Besides these, there are long extracts from Basilidian and Valentinian works which may be by the founders of those sects, and which certainly give us a more extended insight into their doctrines than we before possessed; while Book X contains what purports to be a summary of the whole work.

This, however, does not exhaust the new information put at our disposal by Mynas’ discovery. In the course of an account of the heresy of Noetus, who refused to admit any difference between the First and Second Persons of the Trinity, our author suddenly develops a violent attack on one Callistus, a high officer of the Church, whom he describes as a runaway slave who had made away with his master’s money, had stolen that deposited with him by widows and others belonging to the Church, and had been condemned to the mines by the Prefect of the City, to be released only by the grace of Commodus’ concubine, Marcia.[6] He further accuses Callistus of leaning towards the heresy of Noetus, and of encouraging laxity of manners in the Church by permitting the marriage and re-marriage of bishops and priests, and concubinage among the unmarried women. The heaviness of this charge lies in the fact that this Callistus can hardly be any other than the Saint and Martyr of that name, who succeeded Zephyrinus in the Chair of St. Peter about the year 218, and whose name is familiar to all visitors to modern Rome from the cemetery which still bears it, and over which the work before us says he had been set by his predecessor.[7] The explanation of these charges will be discussed when we consider the authorship of the book, but for the present it may be noticed that they throw an entirely unexpected light upon the inner history of the Primitive Church.

These facts, however, were not immediately patent. The MS., written as appears from the colophon by one Michael in an extremely crabbed hand of the fourteenth century, is full of erasures and interlineations, and has several serious lacunæ.[8] Hence it would probably have remained unnoticed in the Bibliothèque Royale of Paris to which it was consigned, had it not there met the eye of Bénigne Emmanuel Miller, a French scholar and archæologist who had devoted his life to the study and decipherment of ancient Greek MSS. By his care and the generosity of the University Press, the MS. was transcribed and published in 1851 at Oxford, but without either Introduction or explanatory notes, although the suggested emendations in the text were all carefully noted at the foot of every page.[9] These omissions were repaired by the German scholars F. G. Schneidewin and Ludwig Duncker, who in 1856-1859 published at Göttingen an amended text with full critical and explanatory notes, and a Latin version.[10] The completion of this publication was delayed by the death of Schneidewin, which occurred before he had time to go further than Book VII, and was followed by the appearance at Paris in 1860 of a similar text and translation by the Abbé Cruice, then Rector of a college at Rome, who had given, as he tells us in his Prolegomena, many years to the study of the work.[11] As his edition embodies all the best features of that of Duncker and Schneidewin, together with the fruits of much good and careful work of his own, and a Latin version incomparably superior in clearness and terseness to the German editors’, it is the one mainly used in the following pages. An English translation by the Rev. J. H. Macmahon, the translator for Bohn’s series of a great part of the works of Aristotle, also appeared in 1868 in Messrs. Clark’s Ante-Nicene Library. Little fault can be found with it on the score of verbal accuracy; but fifty years ago the relics of Gnosticism had not received the attention that has since been bestowed upon them, and the translator, perhaps in consequence, did little to help the general reader to an understanding of the author’s meaning.

2. The Authorship of the Work

Even before Mynas’ discovery, doubts had been cast on the attribution of the Philosophumena to Origen. The fact that the author in his Proæmium speaks of himself as a successor of the Apostles, a sharer in the grace of high priesthood, and a guardian of the Church,[12] had already led several learned writers in the eighteenth century to point out that Origen, who was never even a bishop, could not possibly be the author, and Epiphanius, Didymus of Alexandria, and Aetius were among the names to which it was assigned. Immediately upon the publication of Miller’s text, this controversy was revived, and naturally became coloured by the religious and political opinions of its protagonists. Jacobi in a German theological journal was the first to declare that it must have been written by Hippolytus, a contemporary of Callistus,[13] and this proved to be like the letting out of waters. The dogma of Papal Infallibility was already in the air, and the opportunity was at once seized by the Baron von Bunsen, then Prussian Ambassador at the Court of St. James’, to do what he could to defeat its promulgation. In his Hippolytus and his Age (1852), he asserted his belief in Jacobi’s theory, and drew from the abuse of Callistus in Book IX of the newly discovered text, the conclusion that even in the third century the Primacy of the Bishops of Rome was effectively denied. The celebrated Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, followed with a scholarly study in which, while rejecting von Bunsen’s conclusion, he admitted his main premises; and Dr. Döllinger, who was later to prove the chief opponent of Papal claims, appeared a little later with a work on the same side. Against these were to be found none who ventured to defend the supposed authorship of Origen, but many who did not believe that the work was rightly attributed to Hippolytus. Among the Germans, Fessler and Baur pronounced for Caius, a presbyter to whom Photius in the ninth century gave the curious title of “Bishop of Gentiles,” as author; of the Italians, de Rossi assigned it to Tertullian and Armellini to Novatian; of the French, the Abbé Jallabert in a doctoral thesis voted for Tertullian; while Cruice, who was afterwards to translate the work, thought its author must be either Caius or Tertullian.[14] Fortunately there is now no reason to re-open the controversy, which one may conclude has come to an end by the death of Lipsius, the last serious opponent of the Hippolytan authorship. Mgr. Duchesne, who may in such a matter be supposed to speak with the voice of the majority of the learned of his own communion, in his Histoire Ancienne de l’Église[15] accepts the view that Hippolytus was the author of the Philosophumena, and thinks that he became reconciled to the Church under the persecution of Maximin.[16] We may, therefore, take it that Hippolytus’ authorship is now admitted on all sides.

A few words must be said as to what is known of this Hippolytus. A Saint and Martyr of that name appears in the Roman Calendar, and a seated statue of him was discovered in Rome in the sixteenth century inscribed on the back of the chair with a list of works, one of which is claimed in our text as written by its author.[17] He is first mentioned by Eusebius, who describes him as the “Bishop of another Church” than that of Bostra, of which he has been speaking;[18] then by Theodoret, who calls him the “holy Hippolytus, bishop and martyr”;[19] and finally by Prudentius, who says that he became a Novatianist, but on his way to martyrdom returned to the bosom of the Church and entreated his followers to do the same.[20] We have many writings, mostly fragmentary, attributed to him, including among others one on the Paschal cycle which is referred to on the statue just mentioned, a tract against Noetus used later by Epiphanius, and others on Antichrist, Daniel, and the Apocalypse, all of which show a markedly chiliastic tendency. In the MSS. in which some of these occur, he is spoken of as “Bishop of Rome,” and this seems to have been his usual title among Greek writers, although he is in other places called “Archbishop,” and by other titles. From these and other facts, Döllinger comes to the conclusion that he was really an anti-pope or schismatic bishop who set himself up against the authority of Callistus, and this, too, is accepted by Mgr. Duchesne, who agrees with Döllinger that the schism created by him lasted through the primacies of Callistus’ successors, Urbanus and Pontianus, and only ceased when this last was exiled together with Hippolytus to the mines of Sardinia.[21] Though the evidence on which this is based is not very strong, it is a very reasonable account of the whole matter; and it becomes more probable if we choose to believe—for which, however, there is no distinct evidence—that Hippolytus was the head of the Greek-speaking community of Christians at Rome, while his enemy Callistus presided over the more numerous Latins. In that case, the schism would be more likely to be forgotten in time of persecution, and would have less chance of survival than the more serious ones of a later age; while it would satisfactorily account for the conduct of the Imperial authorities in sending the heads of both communities into penal servitude at the same time. By doing so, Maximin or his pagan advisers doubtless considered they were dealing the yet adolescent Church a double blow.

3. The Credibility of Hippolytus

Assuming, then, that our author was Hippolytus, schismatic Bishop of Rome from about 218 to 235, we must next see what faith is to be attached to his statements. This question was first raised by the late Dr. George Salmon, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, who was throughout his life a zealous student of Gnosticism and of the history of the Church during the early centuries. While working through our text he was so struck by the repetition in the account of four different sects of the simile about the magnet drawing iron to itself and the amber the straws, as to excogitate a theory that Hippolytus must have been imposed upon by a forger who had sold him a number of documents purporting to be the secret books of the heretics, but in reality written by the forger himself.[22] This theory was afterwards adopted by the late Heinrich Stähelin, who published a treatise in which he attempted to show in the laborious German way, by a comparison of nearly all the different passages in it which present any similarity of diction, that the whole document was suspect.[23] The different passages on which he relies will be dealt with in the notes as they occur, and it may be sufficient to mention here the opinion of M. Eugène de Faye, the latest writer on the point, that the theory of Salmon and Stähelin goes a long way beyond the facts.[24] As M. de Faye points out, the different documents quoted in the work differ so greatly from one another both in style and contents, that to have invented or concocted them would have required a forger of almost superhuman skill and learning. To which it may be added that the mere repetition of the phrases that Stähelin has collated with such diligence would be the very thing that the least skilful forger would most studiously avoid, and that it could hardly fail to put the most credulous purchaser on his guard. It is also the case that some at least of the phrases of whose repetition Salmon and Stähelin complain can be shown to have come, not from the Gnostic author quoted, but from Hippolytus himself, and that others are to be found in the Gnostic works which have come down to us in Coptic dress.[25] These Coptic documents, as the present writer has shown elsewhere,[26] are so intimately linked together that all must be taken to have issued from the same school. They could not have been known to Hippolytus or he would certainly have quoted them in the work before us; nor to the supposed forger, or he would have made greater use of them. We must, therefore, suppose that, in the passages which they and our text have in common, both they and it are drawing from a common source which can hardly be anything else than the genuine writings of earlier heretics. We must, therefore, agree with M. de Faye that the Salmon-Stähelin theory of forgery must be rejected.

If, however, we turn from this to such statements of Hippolytus as we can check from other sources, we find many reasons for doubting not indeed the good faith of him or his informants, but the accuracy of one or other of them. Thus, in his account of the tenets of the philosophers, he repeatedly alters or misunderstands his authorities, as when he says that Thales supposed water to be the end as it had been the beginning of the Universe,[27] or that “Zaratas,” as he calls Zoroaster, said that light was the father and darkness the mother of beings,[28] which statements are directly at variance with what we know otherwise of the opinions of these teachers. So, too, in Book I, he makes Empedocles say that all things consist of fire, and will be resolved into fire, while in Book VII, he says that Empedocles declared the elements of the cosmos to be six in number, whereof fire, one of the two instruments which alter and arrange it, is only one.[29] Again, in Book IX, he says that he has already expounded the opinions of Heraclitus, and then sets to work to describe as his a perfectly different set of tenets from that which he has assigned to him in Book I; while in Book X he ascribes to Heraclitus yet another opinion.[30] Or we may take as an example the system of arithmomancy or divination by the “Pythagorean number” whereby, he says, its professors claim to predict the winner of a contest by juggling with the numerical values of the letters in the competitors’ names, and then gives instances, some of which do and others do not work out according to the rule he lays down. So, too, in his unacknowledged quotations from Sextus Empiricus, he so garbles his text as to make it unintelligible to us were we not able to restore it from Sextus’ own words. So, again, in his account of the sleight-of-hand and other stage tricks, whereby he says, no doubt with truth, the magicians used to deceive those who consulted them, his account is so carelessly written or copied that it is only by means of much reading between the lines that it can be understood, and even then it recounts many more marvels than it explains.[31] Some of this inaccuracy may possibly be due to mistakes in copying and re-copying by scribes who did not understand what they were writing; but when all is said there is left a sum of blunders which can only be attributed to great carelessness on the part of the author. Yet, as if to show that he could take pains if he liked, the quotations from Scripture are on the whole correctly transcribed and show very few variations from the received versions. Consequently when such variations do occur (they are noted later whenever met with), we must suppose them to be not the work of Hippolytus, but of the heretics from whom he quotes, who must, therefore, have taken liberties with the New Testament similar to those of Marcion. Where, also, he copies Irenæus with or without acknowledgment, his copy is extremely faithful, and agrees with the Latin version of the model more closely than the Greek of Epiphanius. It would seem, therefore, that our author’s statements, although in no sense unworthy of belief, yet require in many cases strict examination before they can be unhesitatingly accepted.[32]

4. The Composition of the Work

In these circumstances, and in view of the manifest discrepancies between statements in the earlier part of the text and what purports to be their repetition in the later, the question has naturally arisen as to whether the document before us was written for publication in its present form. It is never referred to or quoted by name by any later author, and although the argument from silence has generally proved a broken reed in such cases, there are here some circumstances which seem to give it unusual strength. It was certainly no reluctance to call in evidence the work of a schismatic or heretical writer which led to the work being ignored, for Epiphanius, a century and a half later, classes Hippolytus with Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria as one from whose writings he has obtained information,[33] and Theodoret, while making use still later of certain passages which coincide with great closeness with some in Book X of our text,[34] admits, as has been said, Hippolytus’ claim to both episcopacy and martyrdom. But the passages in Theodoret which seem to show borrowing from Hippolytus, although possibly, are not necessarily from the work before us. The author of this tells us in Book I that he has “aforetime”[35] expounded the tenets of the heretics “within measure,” and without revealing all their mysteries, and it might, therefore, be from some such earlier work that both Epiphanius and Theodoret have borrowed. Some writers, including Salmon,[36] have thought that this earlier work of our author is to be found in the anonymous tractate Adversus Omnes Hæreses usually appended to Tertullian’s works.[37] Yet this tractate, which is extremely short, contains nothing that can be twisted into the words common to our text and to Theodoret, and we might, therefore, assert with confidence that it was from our text that Theodoret copied them but for the fact that he nowhere indicates their origin. This might be only another case of the unacknowledged borrowing much in fashion in his time, were it not that Theodoret has already spoken of Hippolytus in the eulogistic terms quoted above, and would therefore, one would think, have been glad to give as his informant such respectable authority. As he did not do so, we may perhaps accept the conclusion drawn by Cruice with much skill in a study published shortly after the appearance of Miller’s text,[38] and say with him that Theodoret did not know that the passages in question were to be found in any work of Hippolytus. In this case, as the statements in Book IX forbid us to suppose that our text was published anonymously or pseudonymously, the natural inference is that both Hippolytus and Theodoret drew from a common source.

What this source was likely to have been there can be little doubt. Our author speaks more than once of “the blessed elder Irenæus,” who has, he says, refuted the heretic Marcus with much vigour, and he implies that the energy and power displayed by Irenæus in such matters have shortened his own work with regard to the Valentinian school generally.[39] Photius, also, writing as has been said in the ninth century, mentions a work of Hippolytus against heresies admittedly owing much to Irenæus’ instruction. The passage runs thus:—

“A booklet of Hippolytus has been read. Now Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenæus. But it (i. e. the booklet) was the compilation against 32 heresies making (the) Dositheans the beginning (of them) and comprising (those) up to Noetus and the Noetians. And he says that these heresies were subjected to refutations by Irenæus in conversation[40] (or in lectures). Of which refutations making also a synopsis, he says he compiled this book. The phrasing however is clear, reverent and unaffected, although he does not observe the Attic style. But he says some other things lacking in accuracy, and that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not by the Apostle Paul.”

These words have been held by Salmon and others to describe the tractate Adversus Omnes Hæreses. Yet this tractate contains not thirty-two heresies, but twenty-seven, and begins with Simon Magus to end with the Praxeas against whom Tertullian wrote. It also notices another heretic named Blastus, who, like Praxeas, is mentioned neither by Irenæus nor by our author, nor does it say anything about Noetus or the Apostle Paul. It does indeed mention at the outset “Dositheus the Samaritan,” but only to say that the author proposes to keep silence concerning both him and the Jews, and “to turn to those who have wished to make heresy from the Gospel,” the very first of whom, he says, is Simon Magus.[41] As for refutations, the tractate contains nothing resembling one, which has forced the supporters of the theory to assume that they were omitted for brevity’s sake. Nor does it in the least agree with our text in its description of the tenets and practices of heresies which the two documents treat of in common, such as Simon, Basilides, the Sethiani and others, and the differences are too great to be accounted for by supposing that the author of the later text was merely incorporating in it newer information.[42]

On the other hand, Photius’ description agrees fairly well with our text, which contains thirty-one heresies all told, or thirty-two if we include, as the author asks us to do, that imputed by him to Callistus. Of these, that of Noetus is the twenty-eighth, and is followed by those of the Elchesaites, Essenes, Pharisees and Sadducees only. These four last are all much earlier in date than any mentioned in the rest of the work, and three of them appeared to the author of the tractate last quoted as not heresies at all, while the fourth is not described by him, and there is no reason immediately apparent why in any case they should be put after and not before the post-Christian ones. The early part of the summary of Jewish beliefs in Book X is torn away, and may have contained a notice of Dositheus, whose name occurs in Eusebius and other writers,[43] as a predecessor of Simon Magus and one who did not believe in the inspiration of the Jewish Prophets. The natural place in chronological order for these Jewish and Samaritan sects would, therefore, be at the head rather than at the tail of the list, and if we may venture to put them there and to restore to the catalogue the name of Dositheus, we should have our thirty-two heresies, beginning with Dositheus and ending with Noetus. We will return later to the reason why Photius should call our text a Biblidarion or “booklet.”

Are there now any reasons for thinking that our text is founded on such a synopsis of lectures as Photius says Hippolytus made? A fairly cogent one is the inconvenient and awkward division of the books, which often seem as if they had been arranged to occupy equal periods of time in delivery. Another is the unnecessary and tedious introductions and recapitulations with which the descriptions of particular philosophies, charlatanic practices, and heresies begin and end, and which seem as if they were only put in for the sake of arresting or holding the attention of an audience addressed verbally. Thus, in the account of Simon Magus’ heresy, our author begins with a long-winded story of a Libyan who taught parrots to proclaim his own divinity, the only bearing of which upon the story of Simon is that Hippolytus asserts, like Justin Martyr, that Simon wished his followers to take him for the Supreme Being.[44] So, too, he begins the succeeding book with the age-worn tale of Ulysses and the Sirens[45] by way of introduction to the tenets of Basilides, with which it has no connection whatever. This was evidently intended to attract the attention of an audience so as to induce them to give more heed to the somewhat intricate details which follow. In other cases, he puts at the beginning or end of a book a more or less detailed summary of those which preceded it, lest, as he states in one instance, his hearers should have forgotten what he has before said.[46] These are the usual artifices of a lecturer, but a more salient example is perhaps those ends of chapters giving indications of what is to follow immediately, which can hardly be anything else than announcements in advance of the subject of the next lecture. Thus, at the end of Book I, he promises to explain the mystic rites[47]—a promise which is for us unfulfilled in the absence of Books II and III; at the end of Book IV, he tells us that he will deal with the disciples of Simon and Valentinus[48]; at that of Book VII, that he will do the same with the Docetæ[49]; and at that of Book VIII that he will “pass on” to the heresy of Noetus.[50] In none of these cases does he more than mention the first of the heresies to be treated of in the succeeding book, which the reader could find out for himself by turning over the page, or rather by casting his eye a little further down the roll.

Again, there are repetitions in our text excusable in a lecturer who does not, if he is wise, expect his hearers to have at their fingers’ ends all that he has said in former lectures, and who may even find that he can best root things in their memory by saying them over and over again; but quite unpardonable in a writer who can refer his readers more profitably to his former statements. Yet, we find our author in Book I giving us the supposed teaching of Pythagoras as to the monad being a male member, the dyad a female and so on up to the decad, which is supposed to be perfect.[51] This is gone through all over again in Book IV with reference to the art of arithmetic[52] and again in Book VI where it is made a sort of shoeing-horn to the Valentinian heresy[53]. The same may be said of the “Categories” or accidents of substance which Hippolytus in one place attributes to Pythagoras, but which are identical with those set out by Aristotle in the Organon. He gives them rightly to Aristotle in Book I, but makes them the invention of the Pythagoreans in Book VI only to return them to Aristotle in Book VII.[54] Here again is a mistake such as a lecturer might make by a slip of the tongue, but not a writer with any pretensions to care or seriousness.

Beyond this, there is some little direct evidence of a lecture origin for our text. In his comments on the system of Justinus, which he connects with the Ophites, our author says: “Though I have met with many heresies, O beloved, I have met with none viler in evil than this.” The word “beloved” is here in the plural, and would be the phrase used by a Greek-speaking person in a lecture to a class or group of disciples or catechumens.[55] I do not think there is any instance of its use in a book. In another place he says that his “discourse” has proved useful, not only for refuting heretics, but for combating the prevalent belief in astrology;[56] and although the word might be employed by other authors with regard to writings, yet it is not likely to have been used in that sense by Hippolytus, who everywhere possible refers to his former “books.” There is, therefore, a good deal of reason for supposing that some part of this work first saw the light as spoken and not as written words.

What this part is may be difficult to define with great exactness; but there are abundant signs that the work as we have it was not written all at one time. In Book I, the author expresses his intention of assigning every heresy to the speculations of some particular philosopher or philosophic school.[57] So far from doing so, however, he only compares Valentinus with Pythagoras and Plato, Basilides with Aristotle, Cerdo and Marcion with Empedocles, Hermogenes with Socrates, and Noetus with Heraclitus, leaving all the Ophite teachers, Satornilus, Carpocrates, Cerinthus and other founders of schools without a single philosopher attached to them. At the end of Book IV, moreover, he draws attention more than once to certain supposed resemblances in the views linked with the name of Pythagoras, to those underlying the nomenclature of the Simonian and Valentinian heresies, and concludes with the words that he must proceed to the doctrines of these last.[58] Before he does so, however, Book V is interposed and is entirely taken up with the Ophites, or worshippers of the Serpent, to whom he does not attempt to assign a philosophic origin. In Book VI he carries out his promise in Book IV by going at length into the doctrines of Simon, Valentinus and the followers of this last, and in Book VII he takes us in like manner through those of Basilides, Menander, Marcion and his successors, Carpocrates, Cerinthus and many others of the less-known heresiarchs. Book VIII deals in the same way with a sect that he calls the Docetæ, Monoimus the Arabian, Tatian, Hermogenes and some others. In the case of the Ophite teachers, Simon, and Basilides, he gives us, as has been said, extracts from documents which are entirely new to us, and were certainly not used by Irenæus, while he adds to the list of heresies described by his predecessor, the sects of the Docetæ, Monoimus and the Quartodecimans. In all the other heresies so far, he follows Irenæus’ account almost word for word, and with such closeness as enables us to restore in great part the missing Greek text of that Father. With Book IX, however, there comes a change. Mindful of the intention expressed in Book I, he here begins with a summary of the teaching of Heraclitus the Obscure, which no one has yet professed to understand, and then sets to work to deduce from it the heresy of Noetus. This gives him the opportunity for the virulent attack on his rival Callistus, to whom he ascribes a modification of Noetus’ heresy, and he next, as has been said, plunges into a description of the sect of the Elchesaites, then only lately come to Rome, and quotes from Josephus without acknowledgment and with some garbling the account by this last of the division of the Jews into the three sects of Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. Noetus’ heresy was what was known as Patripassian, from its involving the admission that the Father suffered upon the Cross, and although he manages to see Gnostic elements in that of the Elchesaites, there can be little doubt that these last-named “heretics,” whose main tenet was the prescription of frequent baptism for all sins and diseases, were connected with the pre-Christian sect of Hemerobaptists, Mogtasilah or “Washers” who are at once pre-Christian, and still to be found near the Tigris between Baghdad and Basra. Why he should have added to these the doctrines of the Jews is uncertain, as the obvious place for this would have been, as has been said, at the beginning of the volume:[59] but a possible explanation is that he was here resuming a course of instruction by lectures that he had before abandoned, and was therefore in some sort obliged to spin it out to a certain length.

Book X seems at first sight likely to solve many of the questions which every reader who has got so far is compelled to ask. It begins, in accordance with the habit just noted, with the statement that the author has now worked through “the Labyrinth of Heresies” and that the teachings of truth are to be found neither in the philosophies of the Greeks, the secret mysteries of the Egyptians, the formulas of the Chaldæans or astrologers, nor the ravings of Babylonian magic.[60] This links it with fair closeness to the reference in Book IV to the ideas of the Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians and Chaldæans, only the first-named nation being here omitted from the text. It then goes on to say that “having brought together the opinions[61] of all the wise men among the Greeks in four books and those of the heresiarchs in five,” he will make a summary of them. It will be noted that this is in complete contradiction to the supposition that the missing Books II and III contained the doctrines of the Babylonians, as he now says that they comprised those of the Greeks only. The summary which follows might have been expected to make this confusion clear, but unfortunately it does nothing of the kind. It does indeed give so good an abstract of what has been said in Books V to IX inclusive regarding the chief heresiarchs, that in one or two places it enables us to correct doubtful phrases and to fill in gaps left in earlier books. There is omitted from the summary, however, all mention of the heresies of Marcus, Satornilus, Menander, Carpocrates, the Nicolaitans, Docetæ, Quartodecimans, Encratites and the Jewish sects, and the list of omissions will probably be thought too long to be accounted for on the ground of mere carelessness. But when the summarizer deals with the earlier books, the discrepancy between the summary and the documents summarized is much more startling. Among the philosophers, he omits to summarize the opinions of Pythagoras, Empedocles, Ecphantus, Hippo, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Academics, Brachmans, or Druids, while he does mention those of Hippasus, Ocellus Lucanus, Heraclides of Pontus and Asclepiades, who were not named in any of the texts of Book I which have come down to us. As for the tenets and practices of the Persians, Egyptians and others, supposed on the strength of the statement at the beginning of Book V to have been narrated in Books II and III, nothing further is here said concerning them, and, by the little table of contents with which Book X like the others is prefaced, it will appear that nothing was intended to be said. For this last omission it might be possible to assign plausible reasons if it stood alone; but when it is coupled with the variations between summary and original as regards Book I, the only inference that meets all the facts is that the summarizer did not have the first four books under his eyes.

This has led some critics to conclude that the summary is by another hand. There is nothing in the literary manners of the age to compel us to reject this supposition, and similar cases have been quoted. The evidence of style is, however, against it, and it is unlikely that if the summarizer were any other person than Hippolytus, he would have taken up Hippolytus’ personal quarrel against Callistus. Yet in the text of Book X before us the charge of heresy against Callistus is repeated, although perhaps with less asperity than in Book IX, the accusations against his morals being omitted. Nor is it easy to dissociate from Hippolytus the really eloquent appeal to men of all nations to escape the terrors of Tartarus and gain an immortality of bliss by becoming converted to the Doctrine of Truth with which the Book ends, after an excursion into Hebrew Chronology, a subject which always had great fascination for Hippolytus. Although the matter is not beyond doubt, it would appear, therefore, that the summary, like the rest of the book, is by Hippolytus’ own hand.

In these circumstances there is but one theory that in the opinion of the present writer will reconcile all the conflicting facts. This is that the foundation of our text is the synopsis that Hippolytus made, as Photius tells us, after receiving instruction from Irenæus; that those notes were, as Hippolytus himself says, “set forth” by him possibly in the form of lectures, equally possibly in writing, but in any case a long time before our text was compiled; and that when his rivalry with Callistus became acute, he thought of republishing these discourses and bringing them up to date by adding to them the Noetian and other non-Gnostic heresies which were then making headway among the Christian community, together with the facts about the divinatory and magical tricks which had come to his knowledge during his long stay in Rome. We may next conjecture that, after the greater part of his book was written, chance threw in his way the documents belonging to the Naassene and other Ophite sects, which went back to the earliest days of Christianity and were probably in Hippolytus’ time on the verge of extinction.[62] He had before determined to omit these sects as of slight importance,[63] but now perceiving the interest of the new documents, he hastily incorporated them in his book immediately after his account of the magicians, so that they might appear as what he with some truth said they were, to wit, the fount and source of all later Gnosticism. To do this, he had to displace the account of the Jewish and Samaritan sects with which all the heresiologists of the time thought it necessary to begin their histories. He probably felt the less reluctance in doing so, because the usual mention of these sects as “heresies” in some sort contradicted his pet theory, which was that the Gnostic tenets were not a mere perversion of Christian teaching, but were derived from philosophic theories of the creation of things, and from the mystic rites.

Next let us suppose that at the close of his life, when he was perhaps hiding from Maximin’s inquisitors, or even when he was at the Sardinian mines, he thought of preserving his work for posterity by re-writing it—such copies as he had left behind him in Rome having been doubtless seized by the Imperial authorities.[64] Not having the material that he had before used then at his disposal, he had to make the best summary that he could from memory, and in the course of this found that the contents of the Books I, II, and III—the material for which he had drawn in the first instance from Irenæus—had more or less escaped him. He was probably able to recall some part of Book I by the help of heathen works like those of Diogenes Laertius, Aetius, or perhaps that Alcinous whose summary of Plato’s doctrines seem to have been formerly used by him.[65] The Ophite and other Gnostic heresies he remembers sufficiently to make his summary of their doctrines more easy, although he omits from the list heresiarchs like Marcus, Satornilus and Menander, about whom he had never had any exclusive information, and he now puts Justinus after instead of before Basilides. Finally, he remembered the Jewish sects which he had once intended to include, and being perhaps able to command, even in the mines, the work of a Romanized but unconverted Jew like Josephus, took from it such facts as seemed useful for his purpose as an introduction to the chronological speculation which had once formed his favourite study. With this summary as his guide he continued, it may be, to warn the companions in adversity to whom he tells us he had “become an adviser,” against the perils of heresy, and to appeal to his unconverted listeners with what his former translator calls not unfitly “a noble specimen of patristic eloquence.” That he died in the mines is most probable, not only from his advanced age at the time of exile and the consequent unlikelihood that he would be able to withstand the pestilential climate, but also from the record of his body having been “deposited” in the Catacombs on the same day with that of his fellow-Pope and martyr Pontianus.[66] Yet the persecution of Maximin, though sharp, was short, and on the death of the tyrant after a reign of barely three years, there is no reason why the transcript of Book X should not have reached Rome, where there is some reason to think it was known from its opening words as “the Labyrinth.” Later it was probably appended to Books IV to IX of Hippolytus’ better known work, and the whole copied for the use of those officials who had to enquire into heresy. To them, Books II and III would be useless, and they probably thought it inexpedient to perpetuate any greater knowledge than was necessary for their better suppression, of the unclean mysteries of either pagan or Gnostic. As for Book I, besides being harmless, it had possibly by that time become too firmly connected with the name of Origen for its attribution to this other sufferer in the Maximinian persecution to be disturbed in later times.

It only remains to see how this theory fits in with the remarks of Photius given above. It is fairly evident that Photius is speaking from recollection only, and that the words do not suggest that he had Hippolytus’ actual work before him when writing, while he throughout speaks of it in the past tense as one might speak of a document which has long since perished, although some memory of its contents have been preserved. If this were so, we might be prepared to take Photius’ description as not necessarily accurate in every detail; yet, as we have it, it is almost a perfect description of our text. The 32 heresies, as we have shown above, appear in our text as in Photius’ document. Our text contains not only the large excerpts from Irenæus which we might expect from Photius’ account of its inception, but also the “refutations” which do not appear in the Adversus Omnes Hæreses. It extends “up to,” as Photius says, Noetus and the Noetians, and although it does not contain any mention of Dositheus or the Dositheans, this may have been given in the part which has been cut out of Book X.[67] If that were the case, or if Photius has made any mistake in the matter, as one might easily do when we consider that all the early heresiologies begin with Jewish and Samaritan sects, the only real discrepancy between our text and Photius’ description of Hippolytus’ work is in the matter of length. But it is by no means certain that Photius ever saw the whole work put together, and it is plain that he had never seen or had forgotten the first four books dealing with the philosophers, the mysteries and the charlatans. Without these, and without the summary, Books V to IX do not work out to more than 70,000 words in all, and this might well seem a mere “booklet” to a man then engaged in the compilation of his huge Bibliotheca. Whether, then, Hippolytus did or did not reduce to writing the exposition of heresies which he made in his youth, it seems probable that all certain trace of this exposition is lost. It is certainly not to be recognized in pseudo-Tertullian’s Adversus Omnes Hæreses, and the work of Hippolytus recorded by Photius was probably a copy of our text in a more or less complete form.

5. The Style of the Work

Photius’ remark that Hippolytus did not keep to the Attic style is an understatement of the case with regard to our text. Jacobi, its first critic, was so struck by the number of “Latinisms” that he found in it as to conjecture that it is nothing but a Greek translation of a Latin original.[68] This is so unlikely as to be well-nigh impossible if Hippolytus were indeed the author; and no motive for such translation can be imagined unless it were made at a fairly late period. In that case, we should expect to find it full of words and expressions used only in Byzantine times when the Greek language had become debased by Slav and Oriental admixtures. This, however, is not the case with our text, and only one distinctly Byzantine phrase has rewarded a careful search.[69] On the other hand neologisms are not rare, especially in Book X,[70] and everything goes to show the truth of Cruice’s remark that the author was evidently not a trained writer. This is by no means inconsistent with the theory that the whole work is by Hippolytus, and is the more probable if we conclude that it was originally spoken instead of written.

This is confirmed when we look into the construction of the author’s sentences. They are drawn out by a succession of relative clauses to an extent very rare among even late Greek writers, more than one sentence covering 20 or 30 lines of the printed page without a full stop, while the usual rules as to the place and order of the words are often neglected. Another peculiarity of style is the constant piling up of several similes or tropes where only one would suffice, which is very distinctly marked in the passages whenever the author is speaking for long in his own person and without quoting the words of another. In all these we seem to be listening to the words of a fluent but rather laborious orator. Thus in Book I he compares the joy that he expects to find in his work to that of an athlete gaining the crown, of a merchant selling his goods after a long voyage, of a husbandsman with his hardly won crops, and of a despised prophet seeing his predictions fulfilled.[71] So in Book V, after mentioning a book by Orpheus called Bacchica otherwise unknown, he goes on to speak of “the mystic rite of Celeus and Triptolemus and Demeter and Core and Dionysus in Eleusis,”[72] when any practised writer would have said the Eleusinian mysteries simply. A similar piling up of imagery is found in Book VIII, where he speaks of the seed of the fig-tree as “a refuge for the terror-stricken, a shelter for the naked, a veil for modesty, and the sought-for produce to which the Lord came in search of fruit three times and found none.”[73] But it is naturally in the phrases of the pastoral address with which Book X ends that the most salient examples occur. Thus, the unconverted are told that by being instructed in the knowledge of the true God, they will escape the imminent menace of the judgment fire, and the unillumined vision of gloomy Tartarus, and the burning of the everlasting shore of the Gehenna of fire, and the eye of the Tartaruchian angels in eternal punishment, and the worm that ever coils as if for food round the body whence it was bred,[74]—or, as he might have said in one word, the horrors of hell.

Less distinctive than this, although equally noticeable, is the play of words which is here frequently employed. This is not unknown among other ecclesiastical writers of the time, and seems to have struck Charles Kingsley when, fresh from a perusal of St. Augustine, he describes him as “by a sheer mistranslation” twisting one of the Psalms to mean what it never meant in the writer’s mind, and what it never could mean, and then punning on the Latin version.[75] Hippolytus when writing in his own person makes but moderate use of this figure. Sometimes he does so legitimately enough, as when he speaks of the Gnostics initiating a convert into their systems and delivering to him “the perfection of wickedness”—the word used for perfection having the mystic or technical meaning of initiation as well as the more ordinary one of completion[76]; or when he says that the measurements of stellar distances by Ptolemy have led to the construction of measureless “heresies.”[77] At others he consciously puns on the double meaning of a word, as when he says that those who venture upon orgies are not far from the wrath (ὀργή) of God.[78] Sometimes, again, he is led away by a merely accidental similarity of sounds as when he tries to connect the name of the Docetæ, which he knows is taken from δοκεῖν, “to seem,” with “the beam (δοκός) in the eye” of the Sermon on the Mount.[79] He makes a second and more obvious pun on the same word later when he says that the Docetæ do more than seem to be mad; but he is most shameless when he derives “prophet” from προφαίνειν instead of πρόφημι[80]—a perversion which one can hardly imagine entering into the head of any one with the most modest acquaintance with Greek grammar.

But these puns, bad as they are, are venial compared with some of the authors from whom he quotes. None can equal in this respect the efforts of the Naassene author, whose plays upon words and audacious derivations might put to the blush those in the Cratylus. Adamas and Adam, Corybas and κορυφή (the head), Geryon and Γηρυόνην (“flowing from earth”), Mesopotamia and “a river from the middle,” Papas and παῦε, παῦε (“Cease! cease!”), Αἰπόλος (“goat herd”) and ἀεὶ πολῶν (“ever turning”), naas (“serpent”) and ναός (“temple”), Euphrates and εὐφραίνει (“he rejoices”) are but a few of the terrible puns he perpetrates.[81] The Peratic author is more sober in this respect, and yet he, or perhaps Hippolytus for him, derives the name of the sect from περᾶν (“to pass beyond”),[82] although Theodoret with more plausibility would take it from the nationality of its teacher Euphrates the Peratic or Mede; and the chapter on the Sethians does not contain a single pun. Yet that on Justinus makes up for this by deriving the name of the god Priapus from πριοποιέω, a word made up for the occasion.[83] “The great Gnostics of Hadrian’s time,” viz.:—Basilides, Marcion and Valentinus, seem to have had souls above such puerilities; but the Docetic author resumes the habit with a specially daring parallel between Βάτος (“a bush”) and βάτος (Hera’s robe or “mist”)[84] and Monoimus the Arab follows suit with a sort of jingle between the Decalogue and the δεκάπληγος or ten plagues of Egypt, which would hardly have occurred to any one without the Semitic taste for assonance.[85] Of the less-quoted writers there is no occasion to speak, because there are either no extracts from their works given in our text or they are too short for us to judge from them whether they, too, were given to punning.

Apart from such comparatively small matters, however, the difference in style between the several Gnostic writers here quoted is well marked. Nothing can be more singular at first sight than the way in which the Naassene author expresses himself. It seems to the reader on the first perusal of his lucubrations as if the writer had made up his mind to follow no train of thought beyond the limits of a single sentence. Beginning with the idea of the First Man, which we find running like a thread through so many Eastern creeds, from that of the Cabalists among the Jews to the Manichæans who perhaps took it directly from its primitive source in Babylon,[86] he immediately turns from this to declare the tripartite division of the universe and everything it contains, including the souls and natures of men, and to inculcate the strictest asceticism. Yet all this is written round, so to speak, a hymn to Attis which he declares relates to the Mysteries of the Mother with several allusions to the most secret rites of the Eleusinian Demeter and, as it would appear, of those of the Greek Isis. The Peratic author, on the other hand, also teaches a tripartite division of things and souls, but draws his proofs not from the same mystic sources as the Naassene but from what Hippolytus declares to be the system of the astrologers. This system, which is not even hinted at in any avowedly astrological work, is that the stars are the cause of all that happens here below, and that we can only escape from their sway into one of the two worlds lying above ours by the help of Christ, here called the Perfect Serpent, existing as an intermediary between the Father of All and Matter. Yet this doctrine, which we can also read without much forcing of the text into the rhapsody of the Naassene, is stated with all the precision and sobriety of a scientific proposition, and is as entirely free from the fervour and breathlessness of the last-named writer as it is from his perpetual allusions to the Greek and especially to the Alexandrian and Anatolian mythology.[87] Both these again are perfectly different in style from the “Sethian” author from whom Hippolytus gives us long extracts, and who seems to have trusted mainly to an imagery which is entirely opposed to all Western conventions of modesty.[88] Yet all three aver the strongest belief in the Divinity and Divine Mission of Jesus, whom they identify with the Good Serpent, which was according to many modern authors the chief material object of adoration in every heathen temple in Asia Minor.[89] They are, therefore, rightly numbered by Hippolytus among the Ophite heresies, and seem to be founded upon traditions current throughout Western Asia which even now are not perhaps quite extinct. Yet each of the three authors quoted in our text writes in a perfectly different style from his two fellow heresiarchs, and this alone is sufficient to remove all doubt as to the genuineness of the document.

These three Ophite chapters are taken first because in our text they begin the heresiology strictly so called.[90] As has been said, the present writer believes them to be an interpolation made at the last moment by the author, and by no means the most valuable, though they are perhaps the most curious part of the book. They resemble much, however, in thought the quotations in our text attributed to Simon Magus, and although the ideas apparent in them differ in material points, yet there seems to be between the two sets of documents a kind of family likeness in the occasional use of bombastic language and unclean imagery. But when we turn from these to the extracts from the works attributed to Valentinus and Basilides which Hippolytus gives us, a change is immediately apparent. Here we have dignity of language corresponding to dignity of thought, and in the case of Valentinus especially the diction is quite equal to the passages from the discourses of that most eloquent heretic quoted by Clement of Alexandria. We feel on reading them that we have indeed travelled from the Orontes to the Tiber, and the difference in style should by itself convince the most sceptical critic at once of the good faith of our careless author and of the authenticity of the sources from which he has collected his information.

6. The Value of the Work

What interest has a work such as this of Hippolytus for us at the present day? In the first place it preserves for us many precious relics of a literature which before its discovery seemed lost for ever. The pagan hymn to Attis and the Gnostic one on the Divine Mission of Jesus, both appearing in Book V, are finds of the highest value for the study of the religious beliefs of the early centuries of our Era, and with these go many fragments of hardly less importance, including the Pindaric ode in the same book. Not less useful or less unexpected are the revelations in the same book of the true meaning of the syncretistic worship of Attis and Cybele, and the disclosure here made of the supreme mystery of the Eleusinian rites, which we now know for the first time culminated in the representation of a divine marriage and of the subsequent birth of an infant god, coupled with the symbolical display of an “ear of corn reaped in silence.” For the study of classical antiquity as well as for the science of religions such facts are of the highest value.

But all this will for most of us yield in interest to the picture which our text gives us of the struggles of Christianity against its external and internal foes during the first three centuries. So far from this period having been one of quiet growth and development for the infant Church, we see her in Hippolytus’ pages exposed not only to fierce if sporadic persecution from pagan emperors, but also to the steady and persistent rivalry of scores of competing schools led by some of the greatest minds of the age, and all combining some of the main tenets of Christianity with the relics of heathenism. We now know, too, that she was not always able to present an unbroken front to these violent or insidious assailants. In the highest seats of the Church, as we now learn for the first time, there were divisions on matters of faith which anticipated in some measure those which nearly rent her in twain after the promulgation of the Creed of Nicæa. Such a schism as that between the churches of Hippolytus and Callistus must have given many an opportunity to those foes who were in some sort of her own household; while round the contest, like the irregular auxiliaries of a regular army, swarmed a crowd of wonder-workers, diviners, and other exploiters of the public credulity, of whose doings we have before gained some insight from writers like Lucian and Apuleius, but whose methods and practices are for the first time fully described by Hippolytus.

The conversion of the whole Empire under Constantine broke once for all the power of these enemies of the Church. Schisms were still to occur, but grievous as they were, they happily proved impotent to destroy the essential unity of Christendom. The heathen faiths and the Gnostic sects derived from them were soon to wither like plants that had no root, and both they and the charlatans whose doings our author details were relentlessly hunted down by the State which had once given them shelter: while if the means used for this purpose were not such as the purer Christian ethics would now approve, we must remember that these means would probably have proved ineffective had not Christian teaching already destroyed the hold of these older beliefs on the seething populations of the Empire. That the adolescent Church should thus have been enabled to triumph over all her enemies may seem to many a better proof of her divine guidance than the miraculous powers once attributed to her. We may not all of us be able to believe that a rainstorm put out the fire on which Thekla was to be burned alive, or that the crocodiles in the tank in the arena into which she was cast were struck by lightning and floated to the surface dead.[91] Still less can we credit that the portraits of St. Theodore and other military saints left their place in the palace of the Queen of Persia and walked about in human form.[92] Such stories are for the most of us either pious fables composed for edification or half-forgotten records of natural events seen through the mist of exaggeration and misrepresentation common in the Oriental mind. But that the Church which began like a grain of mustard seed should in so short a time come to overshadow the whole civilized world may well seem when we consider the difficulties in her way a greater miracle than any of those recorded in the Apocryphal Gospels and Acts; and the full extent of these difficulties we should not have known save for Mynas’ discovery of our text.

FOOTNOTES

[1] pp. [63], [117], [119]; Vol. II, 148, 150 infra.

[2] Hippolytus, like all Greek writers of his age, must have been entirely ignorant of the Egyptian religion of Pharaonic times, which was then extinct. The only “Egyptian” Mysteries of which he could have known anything were those of the Alexandrian Triad, Osiris, Isis, and Horus, for which see the translator’s Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, Cambridge, 1915, I, c. 2.

[3] The pre-Christian origins of Gnosticism and its relations with Christianity are fully dealt with in the work quoted in the last note.

[4] Save for a few sentences quoted in patristic writings, the only extant Gnostic works are the Coptic collection in the British Museum and the Bodleian at Oxford, known as the Pistis Sophia and the Bruce Papyrus respectively. There are said to be some other fragments of Coptic MSS. of Gnostic origin in Berlin which have not yet been published.

[5] An account by the present writer of this worship in Roman times is given in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for October 1917, pp. 695 ff.

[6] II, pp. 125 ff. infra.

[7] II, p. 124 infra.

[8] The facsimile of a page of the MS. is given in Bishop Wordsworth’s Hippolytus and the Church of Rome, London, 1880.

[9] B. E. Miller, Origenis Philosophumena sive Omnium Hæresium Refutatio, Oxford, 1851.

[10] L. Duncker and F. G. Schneidewin, Philosophumena, etc. Göttingen, 1856-1859.

[11] P. M. Cruice, Philosophumena, etc. Paris, 1860.

[12] p. [34] infra.

[13] Deutsche Zeitschrift für Christliche Wissenschaft und Christliches Leben, 1852.

[14] References to nearly all the contributions to this controversy are correctly given in the Prolegomena to Cruice’s edition, pp. x ff. An English translation of Dr. Döllinger’s Hippolytus und Kallistus was published by Plummer, Edinburgh, 1876, and brings the controversy up to date. Cf. also the Bibliography in Salmon’s article “Hippolytus Romanus” in Smith and Wace’s Dictionary of Christian Biography (hereafter quoted as D.C.B.).

[15] See the English translation: Early History of the Christian Church, London, 1909, I, pp. 227 ff.

[16] This is confirmed by Dom. Chapman in the Catholic Encyclopedia, s. vv. “Hippolytus,” “Callistus.”

[17] The statue and its inscription are also reproduced by Bishop Wordsworth in the work above quoted.

[18] Hist. Eccles., VI, c. 20.

[19] Haer. Fab., III, 1.

[20] Peristeph II. For the chronological difficulty that this involves see Salmon, D.C.B., s.v. “Hippolytus Romanus.”

[21] Duchesne, op. cit., p. 233.

[22] “The Cross-references in the Philosophumena,” Hermathena, Dublin, No. XI, 1885, pp. 389 ff.

[23] “Die Gnostischen Quellen Hippolyts” in Gebhardt and Harnack’s Texte und Untersuchungen, VI, (1890).

[24] Introduction à l’Étude du Gnosticisme, Paris, 1903, p. 68; Gnostiques et Gnosticisme, Paris, 1913, p. 167.

[25] The theory that all existing things come from an “indivisible point” which our text gives as that of Simon Magus and of Basilides reappears in the Bruce Papyrus. Basilides’ remark about only 1 in 1000 and 2 in 10,000 being fit for the higher mysteries is repeated verbatim in the Pistis Sophia, p. 354, Copt. Cf. Forerunners, II, 172, 292, n. 1.

[26] Scottish Review, Vol. XXII, No. 43 (July 1893).

[27] p. [35] infra.

[28] p. [39] infra.

[29] p. [41]; II, p. 83 infra.

[30] II, pp. 119, 151 infra.

[31] For the arithmomancy see p. [83] ff. infra; the borrowings from Sextus begin on p. [70], the tricks of the magicians on p. [92]. For other mistakes, see the quotation about the Furies in II, p. 23, which he ascribes to Pythagoras, but which is certainly from Heraclitus (as Plutarch tells us), and the Categories of Aristotle which a few pages earlier are also assigned to Pythagoras. His treatment of Josephus will be dealt with in its place.

[32] This is especially the case with the story of Callistus, as to which see II, pp. 124 ff. infra.

[33] Haer. xxxi., p. 205, Oehler.

[34] Haeret. fab. I, 17-24.

[35] πάλαι.

[36] In D.C.B., art. cit. supra.

[37] See Oehler’s edition of Tertullian’s works, II, 751 ff. The parallel passages are set out in convenient form in Bishop Wordsworth’s book before quoted.

[38] Études sur de nouveaux documents historiques empruntés à l’ouvrage récemment découvert des Philosophumena, Paris, 1853.

[39] II, pp. 43, 47 infra.

[40] ὁμιλοῦντος Εἰρηναίου. For the whole quotation, see Photius, Bibliotheca, 121 (Bekker’s ed.).

[41] Tertullian (Oehler’s ed.), II, 751. St. Jerome in quoting this passage says the heretics have mangled the Gospel.

[42] Thus the tractate makes Simon Magus call his Helena Sophia, and says that Basilides named his Supreme God Abraxas. It knows nothing of the God-who-is-not and the three Sonhoods of our text: and it gives an entirely different account of the Sethians, whom it calls Sethitæ, and says that they identified Christ with Seth. In this heresy, too, it introduces Sophia, and makes her the author of the Flood.

[43] Euseb., Hist. Eccles. IV, c. 22. He is quoting Hegesippus. See also Origen contra Celsum, VI, c. 11.

[44] II, p. 3 infra.

[45] II, pp. 61 ff. infra.

[46] pp. [103], [119]; II, pp. 1, 57, 148, 149 infra.

[47] p. [66] infra.

[48] p. [117] infra.

[49] II, p. 97 infra.

[50] II, p. 116 infra.

[51] p. [37] infra.

[52] p. [115] infra.

[53] II, p. 20. In II, p. 49, it is mentioned in connection with the heresy of Marcus, and on p. 104 the same theory is attributed to the “Egyptians.”

[54] p. [66]; II, pp. 21, 64 infra.

[55] ἀγαπητοί, p. [113] and p. [180] infra. It also occurs on p. 125 of Vol. II in the same connection.

[56] λόγος, pp. [107] and [120] infra. He uses the word in the same sense on p. [113].

[57] p. [35] infra.

[58] p. [117] infra.

[59] Pseudo-Hieronymus, Isidorus Hispalensis, and Honorius Augustodunensis, like Epiphanius, begin their catalogues of heresies with the Jewish and Samaritan sects. Philastrius leads off with the Ophites and Sethians whom he declares to be pre-Christian, and then goes on to Dositheus, and the Jewish “heresies” before coming to Simon Magus. Pseudo-Augustine and Prædestinatus begin with Simon Magus and include no pre-Christian sects. See Oehler, Corpus Hæreseologicus, Berlin, 1866, t. i.

[60] II, p. 150 infra.

[61] δόγματα, p. cit.

[62] So Origen, Cont. Cels., VI, 24, speaks of “the very insignificant sect called Ophites.”

[63] II, p. 116 infra, where he says that he did not think them worth refuting.

[64] For the search made both by pagan and Christian inquisitors for their opponents’ books, see Forerunners, II, 12.

[65] See n. on p. [51] infra.

[66] Cf. Salmon in D.C.B., s.v. “Hippolytus Romanus.”

[67] Hippolytus’ denial of the Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews probably appeared in some work other than our text. Or it may have been cut out by the scribe as offensive to orthodoxy.

[68] A flagrant case is to be found in p. 81 Cr. where Π (P) has, according to Schneidewin, been written for R, a mistake that could only be made by one used to Roman letters. Cf. Serpens and serviens, p. 487 Cr.

[69] ἀφότε for ἀφ᾽οὗ, p. 453 Cr.

[70] e. g. φυσιογονική (p. 9 Cr.), κοπιαταὶ (p. 86), ἰχθυοκόλλα (p. 103), ἀρχανθρώπος (p. 153), ἀπρονοήτος (p. 176), κλεψιλόγος (p. 370), πρωτογενέτειρα (p. 489), κατιδιοποιούμενος (p. 500), ἀδίστακτος (p. 511), ταρταρούχος (p. 523).

[71] p. [35] infra.

[72] p. [166] infra.

[73] II, p. 99 infra.

[74] II, pp. 177 ff.

[75] See Augustine’s sermon in Hypatia.

[76] p. [33] infra.

[77] p. [83] infra.

[78] II, p. 2 infra.

[79] II, p. 99 infra.

[80] II, p. 175 infra.

[81] See pp. [122], [133], [134], [135], [137], [142], [143] infra.

[82] p. [154] infra.

[83] p. [178] infra.

[84] II, p. 102.

[85] II, p. 109.

[86] See Forerunners, I, lxi ff.

[87] This applies to the chief Peratic author quoted. The long catalogue connecting personages in the Greek mythology with particular stars is, as is said later, by another hand, and is introduced by a bombastic utterance like that attributed to Simon Magus.

[88] Hippolytus attributes it to the Orphics; but see de Faye for another explanation.

[89] Forerunners, II, 49.

[90] Justinus is left out of the account because he does not seem to have been an Ophite at all. The Serpent in his system is entirely evil, and therefore not an object of worship, and his sect is probably much later than the other three in the same book.

[91] Acts of Paul and Thekla, passim.

[92] E. A. T. Wallis Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic Texts in Dialect of Upper Egypt, London, 1915, pp. 579 ff.

BOOK I[1]
THE PHILOSOPHERS

p. 1,
Cruice.These are the contents[2] of the First Part[3] of the Refutation of all Heresies;

What were the tenets of the natural philosophers and who these were; and what those of the ethicists and who these were; and what those of the dialecticians and who the dialecticians were.

Now the natural philosophers mentioned are Thales, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Parmenides, Leucippus, Democritus, Xenophanes, Ecphantus, and p. 2. Hippo. The ethicists are Socrates, pupil of Archelaus the physicist and Plato, pupil of Socrates. These mingled together the three kinds of philosophy. The dialecticians are Aristotle, pupil of Plato and the founder of dialectics, and the Stoics Chrysippus and Zeno.

Epicurus, however, maintained an opinion almost exactly contrary to all these. So did Pyrrho the Academic[4] who asserts the incomprehensibility of all things. There are also the Brachmans[5] among the Indians, the Druids among the Celts, and Hesiod.

(PROÆMIUM)

No fable made famous by the Greeks is to be neglected. For even those opinions of theirs which lack consistency are believed through the extravagant madness of the heretics, who, from hiding in silence their own unspeakable mysteries, are supposed by many to worship God. Whose opinions also we aforetime set forth within measure, not displaying them in detail but refuting them in the rough,[6] as we did not hold it fit to bring their unspeakable deeds p. 3. to light. This we did that, as we set forth their tenets by hints only, they, becoming ashamed lest by telling outright their secrets we should prove them to be godless, might abate somewhat from their unreasoned purpose and unlawful enterprise.[7] But since I see that they have not been put to shame by our clemency, and have not considered God’s long-suffering under their blasphemies, I am forced, in order that they may either be shamed into repentance, or remaining as they are may be rightly judged, to proceed to show their ineffable mysteries which they impart to those candidates for initiation who are thoroughly trustworthy. Yet they do not previously avow them, unless they have enslaved such a one by keeping him long in suspense and preparing him by blasphemy against the true God,[8] and they see him longing for the jugglery of the disclosure. And then, when they have proved him to be bound fast by iniquity,[9] they initiate him and impart to him the perfection of evil things,[10] first binding him by oath neither to tell nor to impart them to any one unless he too has been enslaved in the same way. Yet from him to whom they have been only communicated, no oath is p. 4. longer necessary. For whoso has submitted to learn and to receive their final mysteries will by the act itself and by his own conscience be bound not to utter them to others. For were he to declare to any man such an offence, he would neither be reckoned longer among men, nor thought worthy any more to behold the light. Which things also are such an offence that even the dumb animals do not attempt them, as we shall say in its place.[11] But since the argument compels us to enter into the case very deeply, we do not think fit to hold our peace, but setting forth in detail the opinions of all, we shall keep silence on none. And it seems good to us to spare no labour even if thereby the tale be lengthened. For we shall leave behind us no small help to the life of men against further error, when all see clearly the hidden and unspeakable orgies of which the heretics are the stewards and which they impart only to the initiated. But none other will refute these things than the Holy Spirit handed down in the Church which the Apostles having first received did distribute to those who rightly believed. Whose successors we chance to be and partakers of the same grace of high priesthood[12] and of p. 5. teaching and accounted guardians of the Church. Wherefore we close not our eyes nor abstain from straight speech; but neither do we tire in working with our whole soul and body worthily to return worthy service to the beneficent God. Nor do we make full return save that we slacken not in that which is entrusted to us; but we fill full the measures of our opportunity and without envy communicate to all whatsoever the Holy Spirit shall provide. Thus we not only bring into the open by refutation the affairs of the enemy;[13] but also whatever the truth has received by the Father’s grace and ministered to men. These things we preach[14] as one who is not ashamed, both interpreting them by discourse and making them to bear witness by writings.

In order then, as we have said by anticipation, that we may show these men to be godless alike in purpose, character and deed, and from what source their schemes have come—and because they have in their attempts taken nothing from the Holy Scriptures, nor is it from guarding the succession of any saint that they have been hurried into p. 6. these things, but their theories[15] take their origin from the wisdom of the Greeks, from philosophizing opinions,[16] from would-be mysteries and from wandering astrologers—it seems then proper that we first set forth the tenets of the philosophers of the Greeks and point out to our readers[17] which of them are the oldest and most reverent towards the Divinity.[18] Then, that we should match[19] each heresy with a particular opinion so as to show how the protagonist of the heresy, meeting with these schemes, gained advantage by seizing their principles and being driven on from them to worse things constructed his own system.[20] Now the undertaking is full of toil and requires much research. But we shall not be found wanting. For at the last it will give us much joy, as with the athlete who has won the crown with much labour, or the merchant who has gained profit after great tossing of the sea, or the husbandman who gets the benefit of his crops from the sweat of his brow, or the prophet who after reproaches and insults sees his predictions come to pass.[21] We will therefore begin by declaring which of the Greeks first made demonstration of natural philosophy. For of them especially have the protagonists of the heretics become the plagiarists, as we p. 7. shall afterwards show by setting them side by side. And when we have restored to each of these pioneers his own, we shall put the heresiarchs beside them naked and unseemly.[22]

1. Thales.

It is said that Thales the Milesian, one of the seven sages, was the first to take in hand natural philosophy.[23] He said that the beginning and end of the universe was water;[24] for that from its solidification and redissolution all things have been constructed and that all are borne about by it. And that from it also come earthquakes and the turnings about of the stars and the motions of the winds.[25] And that all things are formed and flow in accordance with the nature of the first cause of generation; but that the Divinity is that which has neither beginning nor end.[26] Thales, having devoted himself to the system of the stars and to an enquiry into them, became for the Greeks the first who was responsible for this branch of learning. And he, gazing upon the heavens and saying that he was apprehending p. 8. with care the things above, fell into a well; whereupon a certain servant maid of the name of Thratta[27] laughed at him and said: “While intent on beholding things in heaven, he does not see what is at his feet.” And he lived about the time of Crœsus.

2. Pythagoras.

And not far from this time there flourished another philosophy founded by Pythagoras, who some say was a Samian. They call it the Italic because Pythagoras, fleeing from Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, took up his abode in a city of Italy and there spent his life. Whose successors in the school did not differ much from him in judgment. And he, after having enquired into physics, combined with it astronomy, geometry and music.[28] And thus he showed that unity is God,[29] and after curiously studying the nature of number, he said that the cosmos makes melody and was put together by harmony, and he first reduced the movement of the seven stars[30] to rhythm and melody. Wondering, however, at the arrangement of the universals,[31] he p. 9. expected his disciples to keep silence as to the first things learned by them, as if they were mystæ of the universe coming into the cosmos. Thereafter when it seemed that they had partaken sufficiently of the schooling of the discourses, and could themselves philosophize about stars and Nature, he, having judged them purified, bade them speak. He divided the disciples into two classes, and called these Esoterics and those Exoterics. To the first-named he entrusted the more complete teaching, to the others the more restricted. He applied himself[32] to magic[33] also, as they say, and himself invented a philosophy of the origin of Nature,[34] based upon certain numbers and measures, saying that the origin of the arithmetical philosophy comprised this method by synthesis. The first number became a principle which is one, illimitable, incomprehensible, and contains within itself all the numbers that can come to infinity by multiplication.[35] But the first unit was by hypothesis the origin of numbers, the which is a male monad begetting like a father all the other numbers. In the second place is the dyad, a female number, and the same is called even by p. 10. the arithmeticians. In the third place is the triad, a male number, and it has been called odd by the arithmeticians’ decree. After all these is the tetrad, a female number, and this is also called even, because it is female. Therefore all the numbers derived from the genus[36] (now the illimitable genus is “number”) are four, from which was constructed, according to them, the perfect number, the decad. For the 1, 2, 3, 4 become 10 if for each number its appropriate name be substantially kept.[37] This decad Pythagoras said was a sacred Tetractys, a source of everlasting Nature containing roots within itself, and that from the same number all the numbers have their beginning. For the 11 and the 12 and the rest share the beginning of their being from the 10. The four divisions of the same decad, the perfect number, are called number, monad,[38] square[39] and cube. The conjunctions and minglings of p. 11. which make for the birth of increase and complete naturally the fruitful number. For when the square is multiplied[40] by itself, it becomes a square squared; when into the cube, the square cubed; when the cube is multiplied by the cube, it becomes a cube cubed. So that all the numbers from which comes the birth of things which are, are seven; to wit: number, monad, square, cube, square of square, cube of square and cube of cube.

He declared also that the soul is immortal and that there is a change from one body to another.[41] Wherefore he said that he himself had been before Trojan times Aethalides,[42] and that in the Trojan era he was Euphorbus, and after that Hermotimus the Samian, after which Pyrrho of Delos, and fifthly Pythagoras. But Diodorus the Eretrian and Aristoxenus the writer on music[43] say that Pythagoras went to visit Zaratas[44] the Chaldæan; and Zaratas explained to him that there are from the beginning two causes of things that are, a father and mother: and that the father is light and the mother, darkness: and the divisions of the light are hot, dry, light (in weight) and swift; but those of the darkness cold, moist, heavy and slow. From these the p. 12. whole cosmos was constructed, to wit: from a female and a male; and that the nature of the cosmos[45] is according to musical harmony, wherefore the sun makes his journey rhythmically. And about the things which come into being from the earth and cosmos, they say Zaratas spoke thus: there are two demons,[46] a heavenly one and an earthly. Of these the earthly one sent on high a thing born from the earth which is water; but that the heavenly fire partook of the air, hot and cold. Wherefore, he says, none of these things destroys or pollutes the soul, for the same are the substance of all. And it is said that Pythagoras ordered that beans should not be eaten, because Zaratas said that at the beginning and formation of all things when the earth was still being constructed and put together, the bean was produced. And he says that a proof of this is, that if one chews a bean to pulp and puts it in the sun for some time (for this plays a direct part in the matter), it will give out the smell of human seed. And he says that another proof is even clearer. If when the bean is in flower, we take the bean p. 13. and its blossom, put it into a jar, anoint this, bury it in earth, and in a few days dig it up, we shall see it at first having the form of a woman’s pudenda and afterwards on close examination a child’s head growing with it.

Pythagoras perished at Crotona in Italy having been burned along with his disciples. And he had this custom that when any one came to him as a disciple, he had to sell his possessions and deposit the money under seal with Pythagoras, and remain silent sometimes for three and sometimes for five years while he was learning. But on being again set free, he mixed with the others and remained a disciple and took his meals along with them. But if he did not, he took back what belonged to him and was cast out. Now the Esoterics were called Pythagoreans and the others Pythagorists. And of his disciples who escaped the burning were Lysis and Archippus and Zamolxis, Pythagoras’ house-slave, who is said to have taught the Druids among the Celts to cultivate the Pythagorean philosophy. And they say that Pythagoras learned numbers and measures from the Egyptians, and being struck with the plausible, imposing and with difficulty disclosed wisdom of the priests, p. 14. he imitated them also in enjoining silence and, lodging his disciples in cells, made them lead a solitary life.[47]

3. About Empedocles.

But Empedocles, born after these men, also said many things about the nature of demons, and how they being very many go about managing things upon the earth. He said that the beginning of the universe was Strife and Friendship and that the intellectual fire of the monad is God, and that all things were constructed from fire and will be resolved into fire.[48] In which opinion the Stoics also nearly agree, since they expect an ecpyrosis. But most of all he accepted the change into different bodies, saying:

“For truly a boy I became, and a maiden,

And bush, and bird of prey, and fish,

A wanderer from the salt sea.”[49]

p. 15.He declared that all souls transmigrated into all living things.[50] For Pythagoras the teacher of these men said he himself had been Euphorbus who fought at Ilion, and claimed to recognize the shield.[51] This of Empedocles.

4. About Heraclitus.

But Heraclitus of Ephesus, a physicist, bewailed all things, accusing the ignorance of all life and of all men, and pitying the life of mortals. For he claimed that he knew all things and other men nothing.[52] And he also made statements nearly in accord with Empedocles, as he said that Discord and Friendship were the beginning of all things, and that the intellectual fire was God and that all things were borne in upon one another and did not stand still. And like Empedocles he said that every place of ours was filled with evil things, and that these come as far as the moon extending from the place surrounding the earth, but go no further, since the whole place above the moon is very pure.[53] Thus, too, it seemed to Heraclitus.

p. 16.And after these came other physicists whose opinions we do not think it needful to declare as they are in no way incongruous with those aforesaid. But since the school was by no means small, and many physicists afterwards sprang from these, all discoursing in different fashion on the nature of the universe, it seems also fit to us, now that we have set forth the philosophy derived from Pythagoras, to return in order of succession to the opinions of those who adhered to Thales, and after recounting the same to come to the ethical and logical philosophies, whereof Socrates founded the ethical and Aristotle the dialectic.

5. About Anaximander.

Now Anaximander was a hearer of Thales. He was Anaximander of Miletus, son of Praxiades.[54] He said that the beginning of the things that are was a certain nature of the Boundless from which came into being the heavens and the ordered worlds[55] within them. And that this principle is eternal and grows not old and encompasses all the ordered worlds. And he says time is limited by birth, p. 17. substance,[56] and death. He said that the Boundless is a principle and element of the things that are and was the first to call it by the name of principle. But that there is an eternal movement towards Him wherein it happens that the heavens are born. And that the earth is a heavenly body[57] supported by nothing, but remaining in its place by reason of its equal distance from everything. And that its form is a watery cylinder[58] like a stone pillar; and that we tread on one of its surfaces, but that there is another opposite to it. And that the stars are a circle of fire distinct from the fire in the cosmos, but surrounded by air. And that certain fiery exhalations exist in those places where the stars appear, and by the obstruction of these exhalations come the eclipses. And that the moon appears sometimes waxing and sometimes waning through the obstruction or closing of her paths. And that the circle of the sun is 27 times greater than that of the moon and that the sun is in the highest place in the heavens and the circles of the fixed p. 18. stars in the lowest. And that the animals came into being in moisture evaporated by the sun. And that mankind was at the beginning very like another animal, to wit, a fish. And that winds come from the separation and condensation of the subtler atoms of the air[59] and rain from the earth giving back under the sun’s heat what it gets from the clouds,[60] and lightnings from the severance of the clouds by the winds falling upon them. He was born in the 3rd year of the 42nd Olympiad.[61]

6. About Anaximenes.

Anaximenes, who was also a Milesian, the son of Eurystratus, said that the beginning was a boundless air from which what was, is, and shall be and gods and divine things came into being, while the rest came from their descendants. But that the condition of the air is such that when it is all over alike[62] it is invisible to the eye, but it is made perceptible by cold and heat, by damp and by motion. And that it is ever-moving, for whatever is changeable[63] changes not unless it be moved. For it appears different when condensed and rarefied. For when it diffuses into greater rarity fire is produced; but when again halfway p. 19. condensed into air, a cloud is formed from the air’s compression; and when still further condensed, water, and when condensed to the full, earth; and when to the very highest degree, stones. And that consequently the great rulers of formation are contraries, to wit, heat and cold. And that the earth is a flat surface borne up on the air in the same way as the sun and moon and the other stars.[64] For all fiery things are carried through the air laterally.[65] And that the stars are produced from the earth by reason of the mist which rises from it and which when rarefied becomes fire, and from this ascending fire[66] the stars are constructed. And that there are earth-like natures in the stars’ place carried about with them. But he says that the stars do not move under the earth, as others assume, but round the earth[67] as a cap is turned on one’s head, and that the sun is hidden, not because it is under the earth, but because it is hidden by the earth’s higher parts, and by reason of its greater distance from us. And because of their great distance, the stars give out no heat. And that p. 20. winds are produced when the air after condensation escapes rarefied; but that when it collects and is thus condensed[68] to the full, it becomes clouds and thus changes into water. Also that hail is produced when the water brought down from the clouds is frozen; and snow when the same clouds are wetter when freezing. And lightning come when the clouds are forced apart by the strength of the winds; for when thus driven apart, there is a brilliant and fiery flash. Also that a rainbow is produced by the solar rays falling upon solidified air, and an earthquake from the earth’s increasing in size by heating and cooling. This then Anaximenes. He flourished about the 1st year of the 58th Olympiad.[69]

7. About Anaxagoras.

After him was Anaxagoras of Clazomene, son of Hegesibulus. He said that the beginning of the universe was mind and matter, mind being the creator and matter that which came unto being.[70] For that when all things were together, mind came and arranged them. He says, however, that the material principles are boundless, even the smallest of them. And that all things partake of movement, being p. 21. moved by mind, and that like things come together. And that the things in heaven were set in order by their circular motion.[71] That therefore what was dense and moist and dark and cold and everything heavy came together in the middle, and from the compacting of this the earth was established;[72] but that the opposites, to wit, the hot, the brilliant and the light were drawn off to the distant æther. Also that the earth is fat in shape and remains suspended[73] through its great size, and from there being no void and because the air which is strongest bears (up) the upheld earth. And that the sea exists from the moisture on the earth and the waters in it evaporating and then condensing in a hollow place;[74] and that the sea is supposed to have come into being by this and from the rivers flowing into it. And the rivers, too, are established by the rains and the waters within the earth; for the earth is hollow and holds water in its cavities. But that the Nile increases in summer when the snows from the northern parts are carried down into it. And that the sun and moon and all the stars are burning stones and are p. 22. carried about by the rotation of the æther. And that below the stars are the sun and moon and certain bodies not seen by us whirled round together. And that the heat of the stars is not felt by us because of their great distance from the earth; but yet their heat is not like that of the sun from their occupying a colder region. Also that the moon is below the sun and nearer to us; and that the size of the sun is greater than that of the Peloponnesus. And that the moon has no light of her own, but only one from the sun. And that the revolution of the stars takes place under the earth. Also that the moon is eclipsed when the earth stands in her way, and sometimes the stars which are below the moon,[75] and the sun when the moon stands in his way during new moons. And that both the sun and moon make turnings (solstices) when driven back by the air; but that the moon turns often through not being able to master the cold. He was the first to determine the facts about eclipses and renewals of light.[76] And he said that the moon was like the earth and had within it plains and ravines. And that the Milky Way was the reflection of the light of the stars which are not lighted up by the sun. And that the shooting stars p. 23. are as it were sparks which glance off from the movement of the pole. And that winds are produced by the rarefaction of the air by the sun and by their drying up as they get towards the pole and are borne away from it. And that thunderstorms are produced by heat falling upon the clouds. And that earthquakes come from the upper air falling upon that under the earth; for when this last is moved, the earth upheld by it is shaken. And that animals at the beginning were produced from water, but thereafter from one another, and that males are born when the seed secreted from the right parts of the body adheres to the right parts of the womb and females when the opposite occurs. He flourished in the 1st year of the 88th Olympiad, about which time they say Plato was born.[77] They say also that Anaxagoras came to have a knowledge of the future.

8. About Archelaus.

Archelaus was of Athenian race and the son of Apollodorus. He like Anaxagoras asserted the mixed nature of matter and agreed with him as to the beginning of things. But he said that a certain mixture[78] was directly inherent in mind, and that the source of movement is the separation from one another of heat and cold and that the p. 24. heat is moved and the cold remains undisturbed. Also that water when heated flows to the middle of the universe wherein heated air and earth are produced, of which one is borne aloft while the other remains below. And that the earth remains fixed and exists because of this and abides in the middle of the universe, of which, so to speak, it forms no part and which is delivered from the conflagration.[79] The first result of which burning is the nature of the stars, the greatest whereof is the sun and the second the moon while of the others some are greater and some smaller. And he says that the heaven is arched over us[80] and has made the air transparent and the earth dry. For that at first it was a pool; since it was lofty at the horizon, but hollow in the middle. And he brings forward as a proof of this hollowness, that the sun does not rise and set at the same time for all parts as must happen if the earth were level. And as to animals, he says that the earth first became heated in the lower part when the hot and cold mingled and man[81] and the other animals appeared. And all things were unlike p. 25. one another and had the same diet, being nourished on mud. And this endured for a little, but at last generation from one another arose, and man became distinct from the other animals and set up chiefs, laws, arts, cities and the rest. And he says that mind is inborn in all animals alike. For that every body is supplied with[82] mind, some more slowly and some quicker than the others.

Natural philosophy lasted then from Thales up to Archelaus. Of this last Socrates was a hearer. But there are also many others putting forward different tenets concerning the Divine and the nature of the universe, whose opinions if we wished to set them all out would take a great mass of books. But it would be best, after having recalled by name those of them who are, so to speak, the chorus-leaders of all who philosophized in later times and who have furnished starting-points for systems, to hasten on to what follows.[83]

9. About Parmenides.

p. 26.For truly Parmenides also supposed the universe to be eternal and ungenerated and spherical in form.[84] Nor did he avoid the common opinion making fire and earth the principles of the universe, the earth as matter, but the fire as cause and creator. [He said that the ordered world would be destroyed, but in what way, he did not say.][85] But he said that the universe was eternal and ungenerated and spherical in form and all over alike, bearing no impress and immoveable and with definite limits.

10. About Leucippus.

But Leucippus, a companion of Zeno, did not keep to the same opinion (as Parmenides), but says that all things are boundless and ever-moving and that birth and change are unceasing. And he says that fulness and the void are elements. And he says also that the ordered worlds came into being thus: when many bodies were crowded together p. 27. and flowed from the ambient[86] into a great void, on coming into contact with one another, those of like fashion and similar form coalesced, and from their intertwining yet others were generated and increased and diminished by a certain necessity. But what that necessity may be he did not define.

11. About Democritus.

But Democritus was an acquaintance of Leucippus. This was Democritus of Abdera, son of Damasippus,[87] who met with many Gymnosophists among the Indians and with priests and astrologers[88] in Egypt and with Magi in Babylon. But he speaks like Leucippus about elements, to wit, fulness and void, saying that the full is that which is but the void that which is not, and he said this because things are ever moving in the void. He said also that the ordered worlds are boundless and differ in size, and that in some there is neither sun nor moon, but that in others both are greater than with us, and in yet others more in number. p. 28. And that the intervals between the ordered worlds are unequal, here more and there less, and that some increase, others flourish and others decay, and here they come into being and there they are eclipsed.[89] But that they are destroyed by colliding with one another. And that some ordered worlds are bare of animals and plants and of all water. And that in our cosmos the earth came into being first of the stars and that the moon is the lowest of the stars, and then comes the sun and then the fixed stars: but that the planets are not all at the same height. And he laughed at everything, as if all things among men deserved laughter.

12. About Xenophanes.

But Xenophanes of Colophon was the son of Orthomenes.[90] He survived until the time of Cyrus. He first declared the incomprehensibility of all things,[91] saying thus:

Although anyone should speak most definitely

He nevertheless does not know, and it is a guess[92] which occurs about all things.

p. 29.But he says that nothing is generated, or perishes or is moved, and that the universe which is one is beyond change. But he says that God is eternal, and one and alike on every side, and finite and spherical in form, and conscious[93] in all His parts. And that the sun is born every day from the gathering together of small particles of fire and that the earth is boundless and surrounded neither by air nor by heaven. And that there are boundless (innumerable) suns and moons and that all things are from the earth. He said that the sea is salt because of the many compounds which together flow into it. But Metrodorus said it was thanks to its trickling through the earth that the sea becomes salt. And Xenophanes opines that there was once a mixture of earth with the sea, and that in time it was freed from moisture, asserting in proof of this that shells are found in the centre of the land and on mountains, and that in the stone-quarries of Syracuse were found the impress of a fish and of seals, and in Paros the cast of an anchor below the surface of the rock[94] and in Malta layers of all sea-things. And he says that these came when all things were of old time buried in mud, and that the impress of them dried in the mud; but p. 30. that all men were destroyed when the earth being cast into the sea became mud, and that it again began to bring forth and that this catastrophe happened to all the ordered worlds.[95]

13. About Ecphantus.

A certain Ecphantus, a Syracusan, said that a true knowledge of the things that are could not be got. But he defines, as he thinks, that the first bodies are indivisible and that there are three differences[96] between them, to wit, size, shape and power. And the number of them is limited and not boundless; but that these bodies are moved neither by weight nor by impact, but by a divine power which he calls p. 31. Nous and Psyche. Now the pattern of this is the cosmos, wherefore it has become spherical in form by Divine power. And that the earth in the midst of the cosmos is moved round its own centre from west to east.[97]

14. About Hippo.

But Hippo of Rhegium[98] said that the principles were cold, like water, and heat, like fire. And that the fire came from the water, and, overcoming the power of its parent, constructed the cosmos. But he said that the soul was sometimes brain and sometimes water; for the seed also seems to us to be from moisture and from it he says the soul is born.

These things, then, we seem to have sufficiently set forth. Wherefore, as we have now separately run through the opinions of the physicists, it seems fitting that we return to Socrates and Plato, who most especially preferred (the study of) ethics.

15. About Socrates.

Now Socrates became a hearer of Archelaus the physicist, and giving great honour to the maxim “Know thyself” and having established a large school, held Plato to be the most competent of all his disciples. He left no writings p. 32. behind him; but Plato being impressed with all his wisdom[99] established the teaching combining physics, ethics and dialectics. But what Plato laid down is this:—

16. About Plato.

Plato makes the principles of the universe to be God, matter and (the) model. He says that God is the maker and orderer of this universe and its Providence.[100] That matter is that which underlies all things, which matter he calls a recipient and a nurse.[101] From which, after it had been set in order, came the four elements of which the cosmos is constructed, to wit, fire, air, earth and water,[102] whence in turn all the other so-called compound things, viz., animals and plants have been constructed. But the model is the thought of God which Plato also calls ideas, to which giving heed as to an image in the soul,[103] God fashioned[104] all p. 33. things. He said that God was without body or form and could only be comprehended by wise men; but that matter is potentially body, but not yet actively. For that being itself without form or quality, it receives forms and qualities to become body.[105] That matter, therefore, is a principle and the same is coeval with God, and the cosmos is unbegotten. For, he says, it constructed itself out of itself.[106] And in all ways it is like the unbegotten and is imperishable. But in so far as body[107] is assumed to be composed of many qualities and ideas, it is so far begotten and perishable. But some Platonists mixed together the two opinions making up some such parable as this: to wit, that, as a wagon can remain undestroyed for ever if repaired part by part, as even though the parts perish every time, the wagon remains complete; so, the cosmos, although it perish part by part, is yet reconstructed and compensated for the parts taken away, and remains eternal.

Some again say that Plato declared God to be one, unbegotten and imperishable, as he says in the Laws:—“God, p. 34. therefore, as the old story goes, holds the beginning and end and middle of all things that are.”[108] Thus he shows Him to be one through His containing all things. But others say that Plato thought that there are many gods without limitation[109] when he said, “God of gods, of whom I am the fashioner and father.”[110] And yet others that he thinks them subject to limitation when he says: “Great Zeus, indeed, driving his winged chariot in heaven;”[111] and when he gives the pedigree[112] of the children of Uranos and Gê. Others again that he maintained the gods to be originated and that because they were originated they ought to perish utterly, but that by the will of God they remain imperishable as he says in the passage before quoted, “God of gods, of whom I am the fashioner and father, and who are formed by my will indissoluble.” So that if He wished them to be dissolved, dissolved they would easily be. But he accepts the nature of demons, and says some are good, and some bad.

And some say that he declared the soul to be unoriginated and imperishable[113] when he says: “All soul is immortal for that which is ever moving is immortal,” and when he shows that it is self-moving and the beginning of movement. But others say that he makes it originated but imperishable[114] through God’s will; and yet others composite and originated and perishable. For he also supposes that p. 35. there is a mixing-bowl for it,[115] and that it has a splendid body, but that everything originated must of necessity perish. But those who say that the soul is immortal are partly corroborated by those words wherein he says that there are judgments after death, and courts of justice in the house of Hades, and that the good meet with a good reward and that the wicked are subjected to punishments.[116] Some therefore say that he also admits a change of bodies and the transfer of different pre-determined souls into other bodies according to the merit of each; and that after certain definite peregrinations they are again sent into this ordered world to give themselves another trial of their own choice. Others, however, say not, but that they obtain a place according to each one’s deserts. And they call to witness that he says some souls are with Zeus, but that others of good men are going round with other gods, and that others abide in everlasting punishments, (that is), so many as in this life have wrought evil and unjust deeds.[117] And they say that he declared some conditions to be p. 36. without intermediates, some with intermediates and some to be intermediates. Waking and sleep are without intermediates and so are all states like these. But there are those with intermediates like good and bad; and intermediates like grey which is between black and white or some other colour.[118] And they say that he declares the things concerning the soul to be alone supremely good, but those of the body or external to it to be no longer supremely good, but only said to be so. And that these last are very often named intermediates also; for they can be used both well and ill. He says therefore that the virtues are extremes as to honour, but means as to substance.[119] For there is nothing more honourable than virtue; but that which goes beyond or falls short of these virtues ends in vice. For instance, he says that these are the four virtues, to wit, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, and Fortitude, and that there follow on each of these two vices of excess and deficiency respectively. Thus on Prudence follow thoughtlessness by deficiency and cunning by excess; on Temperance, intemperance by deficiency and sluggishness by excess; on Justice, over-modesty by deficiency and greediness by excess; and on Fortitude, p. 37. cowardice by deficiency and foolhardiness by excess.[120] And these virtues when inborn in a man operate for his perfection and give him happiness. But he says that happiness is likeness to God as far as possible. And that any one is like God when he becomes holy and just with intention. For this he supposes to be the aim of the highest wisdom and virtue.[121] But he says that the virtues follow one another in turn and are of one kind, and never oppose one another; but that the vices are many-shaped and sometimes follow and sometimes oppose one another.[122]

He says, again, that there is destiny, not indeed that all things are according to destiny, but that we have some choice, as he says in these words: “The blame is on the chooser: God is blameless,” and again, “This is a law of Adrasteia.” And if he thus affirms the part of destiny, he knew also that something was in our choice.[123] But he says that transgressions are involuntary. For to the most beautiful thing in us, which is the soul, none would admit something evil, that is, injustice; but that by ignorance and mistaking the good, thinking to do something fine, they p. 38. arrive at the evil.[124] And his explanation on this is most clear in the Republic, where he says: “And again do you dare to say that vice is disgraceful and hateful to God? How then does any one choose such an evil? He does it, you would say, who is overcome by the pleasures (of sense). Therefore this also is an involuntary action, if to overcome be a voluntary one. So that from all reasoning, reason proves injustice to be involuntary.” But some one objects to him about this: “Why then are men punished if they transgress involuntarily?” He answers: “So that they may be the more speedily freed from vice by undergoing correction.”[125] For that to undergo correction is not bad but good, if thereby comes purification from vices, and that the rest of mankind hearing of it will not transgress, but will be on their guard against such error.[126] He says, however, that the nature of evil comes not by God nor has it any special nature of its own; but it comes into being by contrariety and by following upon the good, either as excess or deficiency as we have before said about the virtues.[127] Now Plato, as p. 39. we have said above, bringing together the three divisions of general philosophy, thus philosophized.

17. About Aristotle.

Aristotle, who was a hearer of this last, turned philosophy into a science and reasoned more strictly, affirming that the elements of all things are substance and accident.[128] He said that there is one substance underlying all things, but nine accidents, which are Quantity, Quality, Relation, the Where, the When, Possession, Position, Action and Passion. And that therefore Substance was such as God, man and every one of the things which can fall under the like definition: but that as regards the accidents, Quality is seen in expressions like white or black; Quantity in “2 cubits or 3 cubits long or broad”; Relation in “father” or “son”; the Where in such as “Athens” or “Megara”; the When in such as “in the Xth Olympiad”; for Possession in such as “to have acquired wealth”; Action in such as “to write and generally to do anything”; and Passion in such as “to be struck.” He also assumes that some things have means and that others have not, as we have said also about Plato. p. 40. And he is in accord with Plato about most things save in the opinion about the soul. For Plato thinks it immortal; but Aristotle that it remains behind after this life and that it is lost in the fifth Body which is assumed to exist along with the other four, to wit, fire, earth, water and air, but is more subtle than they and like a spirit.[129] Again whereas Plato said that the only good things were those which concerned the soul and that these sufficed for happiness, Aristotle brings in a triad of benefits and says that the sage is not perfect unless there are at his command the good things of the body and those external to it. Which things are Beauty, Strength, Keenness of Sense and Completeness; while the externals are Wealth, High Birth, Glory, Power, Peace, and Friendship; but that the inner things about the soul are, as Plato thought: Prudence, Temperance, Justice and Fortitude.[130] Also Aristotle says that evil things exist, and come by contrariety to the good, and are below the place about the moon, but not above it.

Again, he says that the soul of the whole ordered world is eternal, but that the soul of man vanishes as we have said p. 41. above. Now, he philosophized while delivering discourses in the Lyceum; but Zeno in the Painted Porch. And Zeno’s followers got their name from the place, i. e. they were called Stoics from the Stoa; but those of Aristotle from their mode of study. For their enquiries were conducted while walking about in the Lyceum, wherefore they were called Peripatetics. This then Aristotle.[131]

18. About the Stoics.

The Stoics themselves also added to philosophy by the increased use of syllogisms,[132] and included it nearly all in definitions, Chrysippus and Zeno being here agreed in opinion. Who also supposed that God was the beginning of all things, and was the purest body, and that His providence extends through all things.[133] They say positively, however, that existence is everywhere according to destiny using some such simile as this: viz. that, as a dog tied to a cart, if he wishes to follow it, is both drawn along by it and follows of his own accord, doing at the same time p. 42. what he wills and what he must by a compulsion like that of destiny.[134] But if he does not wish to follow he is wholly compelled. And they say that it is the same indeed with men. For even if they do not wish to follow, they will be wholly compelled to come to what has been foredoomed. And they say that the soul remains after death, and that it is a body[135] and is born from the cooling of the air of the ambient, whence it is called Psyche.[136] But they admit that there is a change of bodies for Souls which have been marked out for it.[137] And they expect that there will be a conflagration and purification of this cosmos, some saying that it will be total but others partial, and that it will be purified part by part. And they call this approximate destruction and the birth of another cosmos therefrom, catharsis.[138] And they suppose that all things are bodies, and that one body passes through another; but that there is a resurrection[139] and that all things are filled full and that there is no void. Thus also the Stoics.

19. About Epicurus.

p. 43.But Epicurus held an opinion almost the opposite of all others. He supposed that the beginnings of the universals were atoms and a void; that the void was as it were the place of the things that will be; but that the atoms were matter, from which all things are. And that from the concourse of the atoms both God and all the elements came into being and that in them were all animals and other things, so that nothing is produced or constructed unless it be from the atoms. And he said that the atoms were the most subtle of things, and that in them there could be no point, nor mark nor any division whatever; wherefore he called them atoms.[140] And although he admits God to be eternal and imperishable, he says that he cares for no one and that in short there is no providence nor destiny, but all things come into being automatically. For God is seated in the metacosmic spaces, as he calls them. For he held that there was a certain dwelling-place of God outside the cosmos called the metacosmia, and that He p. 44 took His pleasure and rested in supreme delight; and that He neither had anything to do Himself nor provided for others. In consequence of which Epicurus made a theory about wise men, saying that the end of all wisdom is pleasure. But different people take the name of pleasure differently. For some understood by it the desires, but others the pleasure that comes by virtue. But he held that the souls of men were destroyed with their bodies as they are born with them. For that these souls are blood, which having come forth or being changed, the whole man is destroyed. Whence it follows that there are no judgments nor courts of justice in the House of Hades, so that whatever any one may do in this life and escapes notice, he is in no way called to account for it.[141] Thus then Epicurus.

20. About (the) Academics.

But another sect of philosophers was called Academic, p. 45. from their holding their discussions in the Academy, whose founder was Pyrrho, after whom they were called Pyrrhonian philosophers. He first introduced the dogma of the incomprehensibility of all things, so that he might argue on either side of the question, but assert nothing dogmatically. For he said that there is nothing grasped by the mind or perceived by the senses which is true, but that it only appears to men to be so. And that all substance is flowing and changing and never remains in the same state. Now some of the Academics say that we ought not to make dogmatic assertions about the principle of anything, but simply argue about it and let it be; while others favoured more the “no preference”[142] adage, saying that fire was not fire rather than anything else. For they did not assert what it is, but only what sort of a thing it is.[143]

21. About (the) Brachmans among the Indians.

The Indians have also a sect of philosophizers in the Brachmans[144] who propose to themselves an independent life and abstain from all things which have had life and from p. 46. meats prepared by fire. They are content with fruits[145] but do not gather even these, but live on those fallen on the earth and drink the water of the river Tagabena.[146] But they spend their lives naked, saying that the body has been made by God as a garment to the soul. They say that God is light; not such light as one sees, nor like the sun and fire, but that it is to them the Divine Word, not that which is articulated, but that which comes from knowledge, whereby the hidden mysteries of nature are seen by the wise. But this light which they say is (the) Word, the God, they declare that they themselves as Brachmans alone know, because they alone put away vain thinking which is the last tunic of the soul. They scorn death; but are ever naming God in their own tongue, as we have said above, and send up hymns to Him. But neither are there women among them, nor do they beget children.[147] Those, however, who have desired a life like theirs, after they p. 47. have crossed over to the opposite bank of the river,[148] remain there always and never return; but they also are called Brachmans. Yet they do not pass their life in the same way; for there are women in the country, from whom those dwelling there are begotten and beget. But they say that this Word, which they style God, is corporeal, girt with the body outside Himself, as if one should wear a garment of sheepskins; but that the body which is worn, when taken off, appears visible to the eye.[149] But the Brachmans declare that there is war in the body worn by them [and they consider their body full of warring elements] against which body as if arrayed against foes, they fight as we have before made plain. And they say that all men are captives to their own congenital enemies, to wit, the belly and genitals, greediness, wrath, joy, grief, desire and the like. But that he alone goes to God who has triumphed[150] over these. Wherefore the Brachmans make Dandamis, to whom Alexander of Macedon paid a visit, divine[151] as one who had won the war in the body. But they accuse Calanus of having impiously fallen away from their philosophy. But the Brachmans putting away the body, like p. 48. fish who have leaped from the water into pure air, behold the Sun.[152]

22. About the Druids among the Celts.

The Druids among the Celts enquired with the greatest minuteness into the Pythagorean philosophy, Zamolxis, Pythagoras’ slave, a Thracian by race, being for them the author of this discipline. He after Pythagoras’ death travelled into their country and became as far as they were concerned the founder of this philosophy.[153] The Celts glorify the Druids as prophets and as knowing the future because they foretell to them some things by the ciphers and numbers of the Pythagoric art. On the principles of which same art we shall not be silent, since some men have ventured to introduce heresies constructed from them. Druids, however, also make use of magic arts.

p. 49.

23. About Hesiod.[154]

But Hesiod the poet says that he, too, heard thus from the Muses about Nature. The Muses, however, are the daughters of Zeus. For Zeus having from excess of desire companied with Mnemosyne for nine days and nights consecutively, she conceived these nine in her single womb, receiving one every night. Now Hesiod invokes the nine Muses from Pieria, that is from Olympus, and prays them to teach him:[155]

“How first the gods and earth became;

The rivers and th’ immeasureable sea

High-raging in its foam: the glittering stars;

The wide-impending heaven; ...

Say how their treasures,[156] how their honours each

Allotted shared: how first they held abode

On many-caved Olympus:—this declare

p. 50.Ye Muses! dwellers of the heavenly mount

From the beginning; say who first arose?

“First Chaos was, next ample-bosomed Earth,

The seat eternal and immoveable

Of deathless gods, who still the Olympian height

Snow-topt inhabit. Third in hollow depth

Of the vast ground, expanded wide above

The gloomy Tartarus, Love then arose

Most beauteous of immortals: he at once

Of every god and every mortal man

Unnerves the limbs; dissolves the wiser breast

By reason steel’d, and quells the very soul.

“From Chaos, Erebus and sable Night...

From Night arose the Sunshine and the Day[157]

Whom she with dark embrace of Erebus

Commingling bore.

“Her first-born Earth produced

Of like immensity,[158] the starry Heaven:

That he might sheltering compass her around

On every side, and be for evermore

To the blest gods a mansion unremoved.

“Next the high hills arose, the pleasant haunts

Of goddess-nymphs, who dwell among the glens

Of mountains. With no aid of tender love

p. 51.Gave she to birth the sterile Sea, high-swol’n

In raging foam; and Heaven-embraced, anon

She teemed with Ocean, rolling in deep whirls

His vast abyss of waters

“Crœus then,

Cœus, Hyperion and Iäpetus,

Themis and Thea rose; Mnemosyne

And Rhea; Phœbe diademed with gold,

And love-inspiring Tethys; and of these,

Youngest in birth, the wily Kronos came,

The sternest of her sons; and he abhorred

The sire that gave him life

“Then brought she forth

The Cyclops haughty of spirit.”

And he enumerates all the other Giants descended from Kronos. But last he tells how Zeus was born from Rhea.

All these men, then, declared, as we have set forth, their opinions about the nature and birth of the universe. But they all, departing from the Divine for lower things, busied themselves about the substance of the things that are. So that when struck with the grandeurs of creation and thinking that these were the Divine, each of them preferred before the rest a different part of what was created. But they discovered not the God and fashioner of them.

The opinions therefore of those among the Greeks who p. 52. have undertaken to philosophize, I think I have sufficiently set forth. Starting from which opinions the heretics have made the attempts we shall shortly narrate. It seems fitting, however, that we, first making public the mystic rites,[159] should also declare whatever things certain men have superfluously fancied about stars or magnitudes; for truly those who have taken their starting-points from these notions are deemed by the many to speak prodigies. Thereafter, we shall make plain consecutively the vain opinions[160] invented by them.[161]

END OF BOOK I

FOOTNOTES

[1] As has been said in the Introduction (p. [1] supra) four early codices of the First Book exist, the texts being known from the libraries where they are to be found as the Medicean, the Turin, the Ottobonian and the Barberine respectively. That published by Miller was a copy of the Medicean codex already put into print by Fabricius, but was carefully worked over by Roeper, Scott and others who like Gronovius, Wolf and Delarue, collated it with the other three codices. The different readings are, I think, all noted by Cruice in his edition of 1860, but are not of great importance, and I have only noticed them here when they make any serious change in the meaning of the passage. Hermann Diels has again revised the text in his Doxographi Græci, Berlin, 1879, with a result that Salmon (D.C.B. s. v. “Hippolytus Romanus”) declares to be “thoroughly satisfactory,” and the reading of this part of our text may now, perhaps, be regarded as settled. Only the opening and concluding paragraphs are of much value for our present purpose, the account of philosophic opinions which lies between being, as has been already said, a compilation of compilations, and not distinguished by any special insight into the ideas of the authors summarized, with the works of most of whom Hippolytus had probably but slight acquaintance. An exception should perhaps be made in the case of Aristotle, as it is probable that Hippolytus, like other students of his time, was trained in Aristotle’s dialectic and analytic system for the purpose of disputation. But this will be better discussed in connection with Book VII.

[2] τάδε ἔνεστιν ἐν τῇ πρώτῃ τοῦ κατὰ πασῶν αἰρέσεων ἐλέγχου. This formula is repeated at the head of Books V-X with the alteration of the number only.

[3] The word missing after πρώτῃ was probably μερίδι, the only likely word which would agree with the feminine adjective. It would be appropriate enough if the theory of the division of the work into spoken lectures be correct. The French and German editors alike translate in libro primo.

[4] There seems no reason for numbering Pyrrho of Elis among the members of the Academy, Old or New. Diogenes Laertius, from whose account of his doctrines Hippolytus seems to have derived the dogma of incomprehensibility which he here attributes to Pyrrho, makes him the founder of the Sceptics. He was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, and probably died before Arcesilaus founded the New Academy in 280 B.C.

[5] Mr. Macmahon here reads “Brahmins.” Their habits appear more like those of Yogis or Sanyasis.

[6] ἁδρομερῶς: in contradistinction to κατὰ λεπτὸν just above.

[7] ἀλογίστου γνώμης καὶ ἀθεμίτου ἐπιχειρήσεως. The Turin MS. transposes the adjectives.

[8] πρὸς το͂ν ὄντως Θεὸν. The phrase is used frequently hereafter, particularly in Book X.

[9] Cf. the “bond of iniquity” in St. Peter’s speech to Simon Magus, Acts viii. 23.

[10] τὸ τέλειον τῶν κακῶν. τέλειον being a mystic word for final or complete initiation.

[11] ἃ καὶ τὰ ἄλογα κ. τ. λ. Schneidewin and Cruice both read εἰ καὶ, Roeper εἰ simply, others εἰ ὅτι. The first seems the best reading; but none of the suggestions is quite satisfactory. The promise to say what it was that even the dumb animals would not have done is unfulfilled. It cannot have involved any theological question, but probably refers to the obscene sacrament of the Pistis Sophia, the Bruce Papyrus and Huysmans’ Là-Bas. Yet Hippolytus does not again refer to it, and of all the heretics in our text, the Simonians are the only ones accused of celebrating it, even by Epiphanius.