BOOK V

THE OPHITE HERESIES

[Sidenote: p. 137.] 1. These are the contents of the 5th (book) of the Refutation of all Heresies.

2. What the Naassenes say who call themselves Gnostics, and that they profess those opinions which the philosophers of the Greeks and the transmitters of the Mysteries first laid down, starting wherefrom they have constructed heresies.

3. And what things the Peratæ imagine, and that their doctrine is not framed from the Holy Scriptures but from the astrological (art).

4. What is the system according to the Sithians, and that they have patched together their doctrine by plagiarizing from those wise men according to the Greeks, (to wit) Musæus and Linus and Orpheus.

5. What Justinus imagined and that his doctrine is not framed from the Holy Scriptures, but from the marvellous tales of Herodotus the historiographer.

1. _Naassenes._[1]

[Sidenote: p. 138.] 6. I consider that the tenets concerning the Divine and the fashioning of the cosmos (held by) all those who are deemed philosophers by Greeks and Barbarians have been very painfully set forth in the four books before this. Whose curious arts I have not neglected, so that I have undertaken for the readers no chance labour, exhorting many to love of learning and certainty of knowledge about the truth. Now therefore there remains to hasten on to the refutation of the heresies, with which intent[2] also we have set forth the things aforesaid. From which philosophers the heresiarchs have taken hints in common[3] and patching like cobblers the mistakes of the ancients on to their own thoughts, have offered them as new to those they can deceive, as we shall prove in (the books) which follow. For the rest, it is time to approach the subjects laid down before, but to begin with those who have dared to sing the praises of the Serpent, who is in fact the cause of the error, through certain systems invented by his action. Therefore [Sidenote: p. 139.] the priests and chiefs of the doctrine were the first who were called Naassenes, being thus named in the Hebrew tongue: for the Serpent is called Naas.[4] Afterwards they called themselves Gnostics alleging that they alone knew the depths.[5] Separating themselves from which persons, many men have made the heresy, which is really one, a much divided affair, describing the same things according to varying opinions, as this discourse will argue as it proceeds.

These men worship as the beginning of all things, according to their own statement, a Man and a Son of Man. But this Man is masculo-feminine[6] and is called by them Adamas;[7] and hymns to him are many and various. And [Sidenote: p. 140.] the hymns, to cut it short, are repeated by them somehow like this:--

“From thee a father, and through thee a mother, the two deathless names, parents of Aeons, O thou citizen of heaven, Man of great name!”[8]

But they divide him like Geryon into three parts. For there is of him, they say, the intellectual (part), the psychic and the earthly; and they consider that the knowledge of him is the beginning of the capacity to know God, speaking thus: “The beginning of perfection is the knowledge of man, but the knowledge of God is completed perfection.” But all these things, he says, the intellectual, and the psychic and the earthly, proceeded and came down together into one man, Jesus who was born of Mary;[9] and there spoke together, he says, in the same way, these three men each of them from his own substance to his own. For there are three kinds of universals[10] according to them (to wit) the angelic,[11] the psychic and the earthly; and three churches, the angelic, the psychic and the earthly; but their names are: Chosen, Called, Captive.[12]

[Sidenote: p. 141.] 7. These are the heads of the very many discourses which they say James the brother of the Lord handed down to Mariamne.[13] So then, that the impious may no longer speak falsely either of Mariamne, or of James, or of his Saviour, we will come to the Mysteries, whence comes their fable, both the Barbarian and the Greek, and we shall see how these men collecting together the hidden and ineffable mysteries of the nations[14] and speaking falsely of Christ, lead astray those who have not seen the Gentiles’ secret rites. For since the Man Adamas is their foundation, and they say there has been written of him “Who shall declare his [Sidenote: p. 142.] generation?”[15] learn ye how, taking from the nations in turn the undiscoverable and distinguished[16] generation of the Man, they apply this to Christ.

“For earth, say the Greeks, was the first to give forth man, thus bearing a goodly gift. For she wished to be the mother not of plants without feeling and wild beasts without sense, but of a gentle and God-loving animal. But hard it is, he says, to discover whether Alalcomeneus of the Boeotians came forth upon the [Sidenote: p. 143.] Cephisian shore as the first of men, or whether (the first men) were the Idæan Curetes, a divine race, or the Phrygian Corybantes whom the Sun saw first shooting up like trees, or whether Arcadia brought forth Pelasgus earlier than the Moon, or Eleusis Diaulus dweller in the Rarian field, or Lemnos gave birth to Cabirus, fair child of ineffable orgies, or Pallene to Alcyon, eldest of the Giants. But the Libyans say Iarbas the first-born crept forth from the parched field to pluck Zeus’ sweet acorn. So also, he says that the Nile of the Egyptians, making fat the mud which unto this day begets life, gave forth living bodies made flesh with moist heat.”[17]

But the Assyrians say that fish-eating[18] Oannes (the first man) was born among them and the Chaldæans (say the same thing about) Adam; and they assert that he was the man whom the earth brought forth alone, and that he lay breathless, motionless (and) unmoved like unto a statue being the image of him on high who is praised in song as the man Adamas; but that he was produced by many [Sidenote: p. 144.] powers about whom in turn there is much talk.[19]

In order then that the Great Man[20] on high, from whom, as they say, “every fatherhood[21] named on earth and in the heavens” is framed, might be completely held fast, there was given to him also a soul, so that through the soul he might suffer, and that the enslaved “image of the great and most beautiful and Perfect Man”--for thus they call him--might be punished.[22] Wherefore again they ask what is the soul and of what kind is its nature that coming to the man and moving[23] him it should enslave and punish the image of the Perfect Man. But they ask this, not from the Scriptures, but from the mystic rites. And they say that the soul is very hard to find and to comprehend, since it does not stay in the same shape or form, nor is it always in one and the same state, so that one might describe it by a type or comprehend it in substance.[24] But these various changes of the soul they hold to be set down in the Gospel inscribed to the Egyptians.

They doubt then, as do all other men of the nations, whether the soul is from the pre-existent, or from the self-begotten, [Sidenote: p. 145.] or from the poured-forth Chaos.[25] And first they betake themselves to the mysteries of the Assyrians[26] to understand the triple division of the Man; for the Assyrians were the first to think the soul tripartite and yet one. For every nature, they say, longs for the soul, but each in a different way. For soul is the cause of all things that are, and all things which are nourished and increase, he says, require soul. For nothing like nurture or increase, he says, can occur unless soul be present. And even the stones, he says, are animated,[27] for they have the power of increase, and no increase can come without nourishment. For by addition increase the things which increase and the addition is the nourishment of that which is nourished.[28] Therefore every nature he says, of things in heaven, and on earth, and below the earth, longs for a soul. But the Assyrians call such a thing[29] Adonis or Endymion or (Attis); and when it is invoked as Adonis Aphrodite loves and longs after the soul of such name. And Aphrodite is generation[30] according to them. But when Persephone or Core loves Adonis[31] there is a certain mortal soul separated from Aphrodite [Sidenote: p. 146.] (that is from generation).[32] And if Selene should come to desire of Endymion[33] and to love of his beauty, the nature of the sublime ones, he says, also requires soul. But if, he says, the Mother of the Gods castrate Attis,[34] and she holds this loved one, the blessed nature of the hypercosmic and eternal ones on high recalls to her, he says, the masculine power of the soul.[35] For, says he, the Man is masculo-feminine. According to this argument of theirs, then, the so-called[36] intercourse of woman with man is by (the teaching of) their school shown to be an utterly wicked and defiling thing. For Attis is castrated, he says, that is, he has changed over from the earthly parts of the lower creation to the eternal substance on high, where, he says, there is neither male nor female,[37] but a new creature,[38] a new Man, who is masculo-feminine. What they mean by “on high” I will show in its appropriate place when I come to it. But they say it bears witness to what they say that Rhea is not simply one (goddess) but, so to speak, the [Sidenote: p. 147.] whole creature.[39] And this they say is made quite clear by the saying:--“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made by Him, in truth, His eternal power and godhead, so that they are without excuse. Since when they knew Him as God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but foolishness deceived their hearts. For thinking themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likenesses of an image of corruptible man and of birds and of fourfooted and creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to passions of dishonour. For even their women changed their natural use to that which is against nature.”[40] And what the natural use is according to them, we shall see later. “Likewise, also the males leaving the natural use of the female burned in their lust one toward another males among males working unseemliness.”[41] But unseemliness is according to them the first and blessed and unformed substance which is the cause of all the forms of [Sidenote: p. 148.] things which are formed. “And receiving in themselves the recompense of their error which is meet.”[42] For in these words, which Paul has spoken, they say is comprised their whole secret and the ineffable mystery of the blessed pleasure. For the promise of baptism[43] is not anything else according to them than the leading to unfading pleasure him who is baptized according to them in living water and anointed with silent[44] ointment.

And they say that not only do the mysteries of the Assyrians bear witness to their saying, but also those of the Phrygians concerning the blessed nature, hitherto hidden and yet at the same time displayed, of those who were and are and shall be, which, he says, is the kingdom of the heavens sought for within man.[45] Concerning which nature they have explicitly made tradition in the Gospel inscribed according to Thomas,[46] saying thus: “Whoso seeks me shall find me in children from seven years (upwards). For there in the fourteenth year I who am hidden [Sidenote: p. 149.] am made manifest.” This, however, is the saying not of Christ but of Hippocrates, who says: “At seven years old, a boy is half a father.” Whence they who place the primordial nature of the universals in the primordial seed having heard the Hippocratian (adage) that a boy of seven years old is half a father, say that in fourteen years according to Thomas it will be manifest. This is their ineffable and mystical saying.[47]

They say then that the Egyptians, who are admitted to be the most ancient of all men after the Phrygians and the first at once to impart to all men the initiations and secret rites[48] of the gods, and to have proclaimed forms and activities, have the holy and august and for those who are not initiated unutterable mysteries of Isis. And these are nothing else than the _pudendum_ of Osiris which was snatched away and sought for by her of the seven stoles and black [Sidenote: p. 150.] garments.[49] But they say Osiris is water. And the seven-stoled nature which has about it and is equipped with seven ethereal stoles--for thus they allegorically call the wandering stars--is like mutable generation[50] and shows that the creation is transformed by the Ineffable and Unportrayable[51] and Incomprehensible and Formless One. And this is what is said in the Scripture: “The just shall fall seven times and rise again.”[52] For these falls, he says, are the turnings about of the stars when moved by him who moves all things. They say, then, about the substance of the seed which is the cause of all things that are, that it belongs to none of these but begets and creates all things that are, speaking thus: “I become what I wish, and I am what I am; wherefore I say that it is the immoveable that moves all things. For it remains what it is, creating all things and nothing comes into being from begotten things.”[53] He says that this alone is good and that it is of this that the Saviour spoke when he said: “Why callest thou me good? There is one good, my Father who is in the heavens, Who makes the sun to rise upon the just and the unjust, and [Sidenote: p. 151.] rains upon the holy and the sinners.”[54] And who are the holy upon whom He rains and who the sinful we shall see with other things later on. And this is the great secret and the unknowable mystery concealed and revealed by the Egyptians. For Osiris, he says, is in the temple in front of Isis, whose _pudendum_ stands exposed looking upwards from below, and wearing as a crown all its fruits of begotten things.[55] And they say not only does such a thing stand in the most holy temples, but is made known to all like a light not set under a bushel but placed on a candlestick making [Sidenote: p. 152.] its announcement on the housetops in all the streets and highways and near all dwellings being set before them as some limit and term.[56] For they call this the bringer of luck, not knowing what they say.

And this mystery the Greeks who have taken it over from the Egyptians keep unto this day. For we see, he says, the (images) of Hermes in such a form honoured among them. And they say that they especially honour Cyllenius the Eloquent. For Hermes is the Word who, being the interpreter and fashioner[57] of what has been, is, and will be, stands honoured among them carved into some such form which is the _pudendum_ of a man straining from the things below to those on high. And that this--that is, such a Hermes--is, he says, a leader of souls and a sender forth of them, and a cause of souls, did not escape the poets of the nations who speak thus:--

“Cyllenian Hermes called forth the souls Of the suitors.”-- (Homer, _Odyssey_, XXIV, 1.)

[Sidenote: p. 153.] Not of the suitors of Penelope, he says, O unhappy ones, but of those awakened from sleep and recalled to consciousness

“From such honour and from such enduring bliss.”-- (Empedocles, 355, Stürz.)

that is, from the blessed Man on high or from the arch-man Adamas, as they think, they have been brought down here into the form of clay that they may be made slaves to the fashioner of this creation, Jaldabaoth, a fiery god, a fourth number.[58] For thus they call the demiurge and father of the world of form.

“But he holds in his hands the rod Fair and golden, wherewith he lulls to sleep the eyes of men, Whomso he will, while others he awakens from sleep.”-- (_Odyssey_, XXIV, 3 ff.)

This, he says, is he who has authority over life and death of whom he says it is written: “Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron.”[59] But the poet wishing to adorn the incomprehensible [Sidenote: p. 154.] (part)[60] of the blessed nature of the Word, makes his rod not iron but golden. And he charms to sleep the eyes of the dead, he says, and again awakens those sleepers who are stirred out of sleep and become suitors. Of these, he says, the Scripture spoke: “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise and Christ shall shine upon thee.”[61] This is the Christ, he says, who in all begotten things is the Son of Man, impressed (with the image) by the Logos of whom no image can be made.[62] This, he says, is the great and unspeakable mystery of the Eleusinians “_Hye Cye_”[63] seeing that all things are set under him, and this is the saying: “Their sound went forth into all the earth,”[64] just as

“Hermes waved the rod and they followed gibbering.”-- (Homer, _Odyssey_, XXIV, 5-7.)

still meaning the souls as the poet shows, saying figuratively:--

“And even as bats flit gibbering in the secret recesses Of a wondrous cave when one has fallen down out of the rock From the cluster....”-- (_Ibid._, XXIV, 9 _seq._)

[Sidenote: p. 155.] Out of the rock, he says, is said of Adamas. This, he says, is Adamas, “the corner-stone which has become the head of the corner.”[65] For in the head is the impressed brain of the substance from which every fatherhood is impressed.[66] “Which Adamas,” he says, “I place at the foundation of Zion.”[67] Allegorically, he says, he means the image of the Man. But that Adamas is placed within the teeth, as Homer says, “the hedge of teeth,”[68] that is, the wall and stockade within which is the inner man, who has fallen from Adamas the arch-man[69] on high who is (the rock) “cut without cutting hands”[70] and brought down into the image of oblivion,[71] the earthly and clayey. And he says that the souls follow him, the Word, gibbering.

Even so the souls gibbered as they fared together, But he went before,

that is, he led them,

“Gracious Hermes led them adown the dark ways.”-- (_Odyssey_, XXIV, 9 ff.)

[Sidenote: p. 156.] that is, he says, into eternal countries remote from all evil. For whence, says he, did they come?

“By Ocean’s flood they came and the Leucadian cliff And by the Sun’s gates and the land of dreams.”-- (_Odyssey_, _ubi cit._)

This he says is Ocean, “source of gods and source of men”[72] ever ebbing and flowing now forth and now back. But when he says Ocean flows forth there is birth of men, but when back to the wall and stockade and the Leucadian rock there is birth of gods. This he says is that which is written: “I have said ye are all gods and sons of the Highest; if you hasten to flee from Egypt and win across the Red Sea into the desert,” that is from the mixture below to the Jerusalem above who is the Mother of (all) living. “But if ye return again to Egypt,” that is to the mixture below, [Sidenote: p. 157.] “ye shall die as men.”[73] For deathly, says he, is all birth below, but deathless that which is born above; for it is born of water alone and the spirit, spiritual not fleshly. This, he says, is that which is written: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.”[74] This is, according to them, the spiritual birth. This, he says, is the great Jordan which flowing forth prevented the sons of Israel from coming out of the land of Egypt--or rather, from the mixture below; for Egypt is the body according to them--until Joshua[75] turned it and made it flow back towards its source.

8. Following up these and such-like (words) the most wonderful Gnostics having invented a new art of grammar[76] imagine that their own prophet Homer unspeakably[77] foreshowed[78] these things and they mock at those who not being initiated in the Holy Scriptures are led together into such designs. But they say: whoso says all things were framed from one, errs; but whoso says from three speaks the truth and gives an exposition of (the things of) the universe. For one, he says, is the blessed nature of the Blessed Man above, Adamas, and one is the mortal (nature), [Sidenote: p. 158.] below, and one is the kingless race begotten on high, where, he says, is Mariam the sought-for one, and Jothor the great wise one, and Sephora the seer,[79] and Moses whose generation was not in Egypt--for there were children born to him in Midian--and this, he says, was not forgotten by the poets:--

“In three lots were all things divided and each drew a domain of his own.”--(_Iliad_, XV, 169.)

For sublime things, he says, must needs be spoken, but they are spoken everywhere, lest “hearing they should not hear and seeing they should see not.”[80] For if, he says, the sublime things were not spoken, the cosmos could not have been framed. These are the three ponderous words: Caulacau, Saulasau, Zeesar.[81] Caulacau the one on high, [Sidenote: p. 159.] Adamas, Saulasau, the mortal nature below, Zeesar the Jordan which flows back on its source. This is, he says, the masculo-feminine Man who is in all things, whom the ignorant call the triple-bodied Geryon--as if Geryon were “flowing from Earth”[82]--and the Greeks usually “the heavenly horn of Mên”[83] because he has mingled and compounded all things with all. “For all things, he says, were made through him and apart from him not one thing was made. That which was in him is life.”[84] This, he says is the life, the unspeakable family of perfect men which was not known to the former generation. But the “nothing” which came into being apart from him is the world of form; for it came without him by the 3rd and 4th.[85] This, he says, is the cup Condy in which the king drinking, divineth. This, he says, is that which was hidden among the fair grains of Benjamin. And the Greeks also say the same with raving lips:--

“Bring water, bring wine, O boy Intoxicate me, plunge me into sleep. The cup tells me [Sidenote: p. 160.] What I must become.”[86]-- (_Anacreon_, XXVI, 25, 26.)

It was enough, he says, that only this should be known to men that Anacreon’s cup spoke mutely an unspeakable mystery. For mute, he says, was Anacreon’s cup which says Anacreon, tells him with mute speech what he must become, that is spiritual not fleshly, if he hears the hidden mystery in silence. And this is the water in those fair nuptials which Jesus changed by making wine. This, he says, is the mighty and true beginning of the signs which Jesus did in Cana in Galilee and made known the kingdom of the heavens. This, he says, is the kingdom of the heavens within us, as a treasure as the leaven hidden within three measures of meal.[87]

[Sidenote: p. 161.] This is, he says, the great and unspeakable mystery of the Samothracians which is allowed to be known to us alone who are perfect. For the Samothracians explicitly hand down in the mysteries celebrated by them that Adam is the Arch-man. And in the temple of the Samothracians stand two statues of naked men having both hands stretched forth to heaven and their _pudenda_ turned upwards like that of Hermes on (Mt.) Cyllene. But the aforesaid statues are the images of the Arch-man and of the re-born spiritual one in all things of one substance[88] with that man. This, he says, is what was spoken by the Saviour: “Unless ye drink my blood and eat my flesh, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of the heavens; but even though, He says, ye drink the cup which I drink when I go forth you will not be able to enter there.”[89] For He knew, he says, from which nature each of His disciples was, and that each of them was compelled to come to his own special nature. For from the twelve tribes, he says, He chose twelve [Sidenote: p. 162.] disciples,[90] and by them He spake to every tribe. Whence, he says, all could not have heard the preachings of the twelve disciples, nor, had they heard them could they have been received. For the things which are not according to[91] nature are with them natural.

This, he says, the Thracians who dwell about Mt. Hæmus and like them the Phrygians call Corybas,[92] because although he takes the beginning of his descent from the head on high and from the Unportrayable one and passes through all the sources of underlying things, we know not how and in what fashion he comes. This, he says, is the saying: “We have heard his voice, but we have not seen his shape.”[93] For, he says, the voice of him who is set apart and has been impressed with the image[94] is heard, but no one has seen what is the shape which has come down from on high from the Unportrayable One. But it is in the earthly form and no one is aware of it. This, he says, is the God who dwells in the flood according to the Psalter and “who speaks aloud and cries from many waters.”[95] “Many waters,” he says, is the manifold generation of mortal men, wherefrom he shouts and cries [Sidenote: p. 163.] aloud to the Unportrayable Man: “Deliver my only begotten from the lions!”[96] In answer to this, he says, is the saying: “Thou art my son, O Israel. Fear not. If thou passest through the rivers they shall not overwhelm thee; if through the fire, it shall not burn thee.”[97] By rivers is meant, he says, the moist essence of generation, and by fire the rage and desire for generation. “Thou art mine. Be not afraid.” And again he speaks: “If a mother forget her children and pities them not nor gives them suck, yet will I not forget thee.”[98] Adamas, he says, speaks to his own men: “But although a woman shall forget these things, yet will I not forget you. I have graven you on my hands.”[99] But concerning his ascension, that is, the being born again, that he may be born spiritual, not fleshly, he says, the Scripture speaks: “Lift up the gates, ye rulers, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the [Sidenote: p. 164.] King of Glory shall enter in.”[100] That is the wonder of wonders. “For who,” he says, “is this King of Glory? A worm and not a man, a reproach of man and an object of contempt for the people. This is the King of Glory, he who is mighty in battle.”[101] But he means the war which is in the body, because the (outward) form is made from warring elements, he says, as it is written: “Remember the war which is in the body.”[102] The same entrance and the same gate, he says, Jacob saw when journeying to Mesopotamia--for Mesopotamia, he says, is the flow of the great Ocean flowing forth from the middle part[103] of the Perfect Man--and he wondered at the heavenly gate, saying: “How terrible is this place! It is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of Heaven.”[104] Wherefore, he says, the saying of Jesus: “I am the true gate.”[105] Now He who says this is, he says, the Perfect [Sidenote: p. 165.] Man who has been impressed above (with the image) of the Unportrayable one. Therefore he says, the perfect man will not be saved unless born again by entering in through this gate.

But this same one, he says, the Phrygians[106] call also Papas, because he set at rest that which had been moved irregularly and discordantly before his coming. For the name of Papa, he says, is (taken from) all things in heaven, on earth, and below the earth, saying: “Make to cease! make to cease![107] the discord of the cosmos and make peace for those that are afar off,”[108] that is, for the material and earthly, and also “for those that are anigh,” that is, for the spiritual and understanding perfect men. But the Phrygians say that the same one is also a “corpse,” having been buried in the body as in a monument or tomb.[109] This, he says, is the saying: “Ye are whited sepulchres filled within with dead men’s bones,”[110] that is, there is not within you the living Man. And again, he says, “the dead shall leap forth from their graves,”[111] that is, the spiritual man, not the fleshly, shall be born again from the bodies of the earthly. This, he says, is the resurrection which comes through the [Sidenote: p. 166.] gate of the heavens, through which if they do not enter, all remain dead. And the same Phrygians, he says again, say that this same one is by reason of the change a god. For he becomes God when he arises from the dead and enters into heaven through the same gate. This gate, he says, Paul the Apostle knew, having set it ajar in mystery and declaring that he “was caught up by an angel and came unto a second and third heaven into Paradise itself and beheld what he beheld, and heard ineffable words which it is not lawful for man to utter.”[112] These are, he says, the mysteries called ineffable by all “which (we also speak) not in the words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual; but the natural[113] man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him”;[114] and these, he says, are the ineffable mysteries of the Spirit which we alone behold. Concerning them, he says, the Saviour spake: “No man shall come unto me unless my heavenly Father draw some one (unto me).”[115] For very hard it is, he says, to receive and take this great and ineffable mystery. And [Sidenote: p. 167.] again, he says, the Saviour spake: “Not every one who sayeth unto me, Lord! Lord! shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he who doeth the will of my Father who is in the heavens.”[116] Of which (will) he says, they must be doers and not hearers only to enter into the kingdom of the heavens. And again, says he, He spake: “The publicans and the harlots go before you into the kingdom of the heavens.”[117] For the publicans, he says, are those who receive the taxes of market-wares, and we are the tax-gatherers “upon whom the ends of the æons have come down.”[118] For the “ends,” he says, are the seeds sown in the cosmos by the Unportrayable One,[119] whereby the whole cosmos is completed;[120] for by them also it began to be. And this, he says, is the saying: “The sower went forth to sow, and some (seed) fell on the wayside and was trodden under foot, and some upon stony (parts) and sprang up; and because it had no root, he says, it withered and died. But some fell, he says, upon the fair and goodly earth and brought forth some a hundredfold, and some sixty and some thirty. [Sidenote: p. 168.] He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”[121] This is, he says, that no one becomes a hearer of these mysteries save only the perfect Gnostics. This, he says, is the fair and goodly earth of which Moses spake: “I will bring you to a fair and goodly land, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”[122] This, he says, is the honey and the milk, tasting which the perfect become kingless and partakers of the fulness.[123] The same, he says, is the Pleroma, whereby all things that are begotten by the unbegotten have come into being and are filled.

But the same one is called by the Phrygians “unfruitful.” For he is unfruitful when he is fleshly and performs the desire of the flesh. This, he says, is the saying: “Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.”[124] For these fruits, he says, are only the rational, the living man who enter by the third gate.[125] They say, indeed: “Ye who eat dead things and make living ones, what will ye make if ye eat living things?”[126] For they say that words[127] and thoughts and men are living things cast down by that Unportrayable One into the form [Sidenote: p. 169.] below. This, he says, is what he means: “Throw not your holy things to the dogs nor pearls to the swine,”[128] saying that the intercourse of woman with man is the work of dogs and swine.

But this same one, he says, the Phrygians call goatherd, not because, he says, he feeds goats and he-goats, as the psychic man calls them, but because, he says, he is Aipolos, that is, he who is ever revolving[129] and turning about and driving the whole cosmos in its circumvolution. For to revolve is to turn about and to change the position of things, whence, he says, the two centres of the heaven men call Poles. And the poet says:--

“What unerring ancient of the sea turns hither The Immortal Egyptian Proteus.”-- (_Odyssey_, IV, 384.)

He[130] is not betrayed (by Eidothea), he says, but turns himself about, as it were, and goes to and fro. He says, too, that cities wherein we dwell are called πόλεις, because [Sidenote: p. 170.] we turn and go about in them. Thus, he says, the Phrygians call him Aipolos, who turns everything always in every direction and changes it into what it should be. But the Phrygians also call the same one “of many fruits,” because (the Naassene writer) says, “the children of the desolate are more in number than those of her who has a husband”;[131] that is, the deathless things which are born again and ever remain are many, if few are those which are born (once); but all the things of the flesh, he says, are corruptible, even if those which are born are many. Wherefore, he says, Rachel mourned for her children and would not be comforted when mourning over them, for she knew, he says, that they were not.[132] And Jeremiah wails for the Jerusalem below, not the city in Phœnicia,[133] but the mortal generation below. For Jeremiah, he says, also knew the Perfect Man who has been born again of water and the spirit and is not fleshly. The same Jeremiah indeed said: “He is a man, and who shall know him?”[134] Thus, he says, the knowledge of the Perfect Man is very deep and hard to comprehend. For the beginning of perfection, he says, is the knowledge of man; but the knowledge of God is completed perfection.

[Sidenote: p. 171.] The Phrygians also say, however, that he is a “green ear of corn reaped”; and following the Phrygians, the Athenians when initiating (any one) into the Eleusinian (Mysteries) also show to those who have been made epopts the mighty and wonderful and most perfect mystery for an epopt[135] there--a green ear of corn reaped in silence.[136] And this ear of corn is also for the Athenians the great and perfect spark of light from the Unportrayable One; just as the hierophant himself, not indeed castrated like Attis, but rendered a eunuch by hemlock, and cut off from all fleshly generation, celebrating by night at Eleusis the great and ineffable mysteries beside a huge fire, cries aloud and makes proclamation, saying: “August Brimo has brought forth a holy son, Brimos,” that is, the strong (has given birth) to the strong.[137] For august is, he says, the generation which is spiritual or heavenly or sublime, and strong is that which is thus generated. For the mystery is called Eleusis or Anacterion: “Eleusis,” he says, because we spiritual ones [Sidenote: p. 172.] came on high rushing from the Adamas below.[138] For _eleusesthai_, he says is to come, but _anactoreion_ the return on high. This, he says, is what they who have been initiated into the mysteries of the Eleusinians say. But it is a regulation that those who have been initiated into the Lesser Mysteries should moreover be initiated into the Great. For greater destinies obtain greater portions.[139] But the Lesser Mysteries, he says, are those of Persephone below and of the way leading thither, which is wide and broad and bears the dead to Persephone, and the poet says:--

“But under her is a straight and rugged road Hollow and muddy, but the best to lead To the delightful grove of much-reverenced Aphrodite.”[140]

These, he says, are the Lesser Mysteries, those of fleshly generation, after being initiated into which men ought to [Sidenote: p. 173.] cease (from the small) and be initiated into the great and heavenly ones. For those who have obtained greater destinies, he says, receive greater portions. For this, he says, is the gate of heaven and this the house of God where the good God dwells alone,[141] into which will not enter, he says, any unpurified, any psychic or fleshly one; but it is kept for the spiritual only, where those who are must cast aside[142] their garments and all become bridegrooms, having come to maturity through the virgin spirit.[143] For this is the virgin who bears in her womb and conceives and gives birth to a son not psychic or corporeal, but the blessed Aeon of Aeons. Concerning these things, he says, the Saviour expressly spake: “Narrow and straitened is the way that leads to life and few are those who enter into it; but wide and broad is the way leading to destruction and many are they who pass along it.”[144]

9. But the Phrygians further say that the Father of the [Sidenote: p. 174.] universals is Amygdalus, not a tree, he says, but that pre-existent almond[145] which containing within itself the perfect fruit (and) as if pulsating and stirring in the depth, tore asunder its breasts and gave birth to its own invisible and unnameable and ineffable boy of whom we are speaking.[146] For “Amyxai” is as if to burst and cut asunder,[147] as he says, in the case of inflamed bodies having within them any gathering, the surgeons who cut them open call them “amychas.” Thus, he says, the Phrygians call the almond from whom the invisible one proceeded and was born, and through whom all things came into being and apart from whom nothing came into being.

But the Phrygians say that he who was thence born is a piper, because that which was born is a melodious spirit. For God, he says, is a Spirit, wherefore neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall the true worshippers prostrate themselves, but in spirit.[148] For spiritual, he says, is the prostration of the perfect, not fleshly. But the Spirit, he says, (is) there where both the Father and the Son are named, being [Sidenote: p. 175.] there born from this (Son and from) the Father.[149] This, he says, is the many-named, myriad-eyed[150] incomprehensible One for whom every nature yearns, but each in a different way. This, he says, is the Word[151] of God, which is, he says, the word of announcement of the great Power. Wherefore it will be sealed and hidden and concealed, lying in the habitation wherein the root of the universals[152] is established, that is[153] (the root) of Aeons, Powers, Thoughts, Gods, Angels, Emissary Spirits, things which are, things which are not, things begotten, things unbegotten, things incomprehensible, things comprehensible, years, months, days, hours (and) of an Indivisible Point,[154] from which what is least begins to increase successively. The Point, he says, being nothing and consisting of nothing (and) being indivisible will become of itself a certain magnitude incomprehensible by thought.[155] It, he says, is the kingdom of the heavens, the grain of mustard seed, the Indivisible Point inherent to the body which none knoweth, he says, save the spiritual alone. This, he says, is the saying: “There are no tongues nor speech where their voice is not [Sidenote: p. 176.] heard.”[156]

Thus they hastily declare that the things which are said and are done by all men are to be understood in their way, imagining that all things become spiritual. Whence they also say that not even they who exhibit (in the) theatres say or do anything not comprehended in advance.[157] So for example, he says, when the populace have assembled in the theatres[158] some one makes entrance clad in a notable robe bearing a cithara and singing to it. Thus he speaks chanting the Great Mysteries[159] (but) not knowing what he is saying:--

“Whether thou art the offspring of Kronos, or of blessed Zeus, Or of mighty Rhea, Hail Attis, the sad mutilation of Rhea.[160] The Assyrians call thee the much-longed-for Adonis, [Sidenote: p. 177.] Egypt names thee Osiris, heavenly horn of the Moon.[161] The Greeks Sophia,[162] the Samothracians, the revered Adamna, The Thessalians, Corybas, and the Phrygians Sometimes Papas, now the dead, or a god, Or the unfruitful one, or goatherd, Or the green ear of corn reaped, Or he to whom the flowering almond-tree gave birth As a pipe-playing man.”[163]

This, he says, is the many-formed Attis to whom they sing praises, saying:--

“I will hymn Attis, son of Rhea, not making quiver with a buzzing sound, nor with the cadence of the Idæan Curetes’ flutes, but I will mingle (with the hymn) the Phœbun music of the lyre. Evohe, Evan, for (thou art) Bacchus, (thou art) Pan, (thou art the) shepherd of white stars.”

For such and such-like words they frequent the so-called Mysteries of the great Mother, thinking especially that by means of what is enacted there, they perceive the whole mystery. For they get no advantage from what is acted there except that they are not castrated. They merely perfect the work of the castrated;[164] for they give most pointed and careful instructions to abstain as if castrated from intercourse with women. But the rest of the work as [Sidenote: p. 178.] we have said many times, they perform like the castrated.

But they worship none other than the Naas, calling themselves Naassenes. But Naas is the serpent, from whom he says, all temples under heaven are called _naos_ from the Naas; and that to that Naas alone is dedicated every holy place and every initiation and every mystery, and generally that no initiation can be found under heaven in which there is not a _naos_ and the Naas within it, whence it has come to be called a _naos_. But they say that the serpent is the watery substance, as did Thales of Miletos[165] and that no being, in short, of immortals or mortals, of those with souls or of those without souls, can be made without him. And that all things are set under him, and that he is good and contains all things within him as in the horn of the one-horned bull[166] (so as) to contribute beauty and bloom to all things according to their own nature and kind, as if he had passed through all “as if he went forth from Edem and cut himself into four heads.”[167]

But this Edem, they say, is the brain, as it were bound [Sidenote: p. 179.] and enlaced in the surrounding coverings as in the heavens; and they consider man as far as the head alone to be Paradise. Therefore “the river that came forth from Eden”--that is from the brain--they think “is separated into four heads and the name of the first river is called Phison; this it is which encompasses all the land of Havilat. There is gold and the gold of that land is good, and there is bdellium and the onyx stone.”[168] This, he says, (is the) eye, bearing witness by its honour (among the other features) and its colours to the saying: “But the name of the second river is Gihon; this it is which encompasses all the land of Ethiopia.” This, he says, is the hearing, being somewhat like a labyrinth. “And the name of the third is Tigris; this it is which goes about over against the Assyrians.” This, he says, is the smell which makes use of the swiftest current of the flood. And it goes about over against the Assyrians because in inspiration the breath drawn in from the outer air is sharper and stronger than the respired breath. For this is the nature of respiration. “The fourth river is Euphrates.” This they say, is the mouth, which is the seat of prayer and the entrance of food, [Sidenote: p. 180.] which gladdens[169] and nourishes and characterizes[170] the spiritual perfect man. This, he says, is the water above the firmament concerning which, he says, the Saviour spake: “If thou knewest who it is that asks thou would have asked of him, and he would have given thee to drink living rushing water.”[171] To this water, he says, comes every nature to choose its own substances,[172] and from this water goes forth to every nature that which is proper to it, he says, more (certainly) than iron to the magnet, gold to the spine of the sea-falcon and husks to amber.[173] But if anyone, he says, is blind from birth, and has not beheld the true light which lightens every man who cometh into the world,[174] let him recover his sight again through us, and behold how as it were through some Paradise full of all plants and seeds, the water flows among them. Let him see, too, that from one and the same water the olive-tree chooses and draws to itself oil, and the vine wine, and each of the other plants (that which is) according to its kind.

[Sidenote: p. 181.] But that Man, he says, is without honour in the world, and much honoured [in heaven, being betrayed] by those who know not to those who know him not, and accounted like a drop which falleth from a vessel.[175] But we are, he says, the spiritual who have chosen out of the living water, the Euphrates flowing through the midst of Babylon, that which is ours, entering in through the true gate which is Jesus the blessed. And we alone of all men are Christians, whom the mystery in the third gate has made perfect, and have been anointed[176] there with silent ointment from the horn like David and not from the earthen vessel, he says, like Saul,[177] who abode with the evil spirit of fleshly desire.

10. These things, then, we have set forth as a few out of many: for the undertakings of folly which are nonsensical and madlike are innumerable. But since we have expounded to the best of our ability their unknowable gnosis, we have thought it right to add this also. This psalm has been concocted by them, whereby they seem to hymn all the [Sidenote: p. 182.] mysteries of their error thus:--[178]

The generic law of the universe was the primordial mind; But the second was the poured-forth light[179] of the First-born: And the third toiling soul received the Law as its portion. Whence clothed in watery shape, The loved one subject to toil (and) death, [Sidenote: p. 183.] Now having lordship, she beholds the light, Now cast forth to piteous state, she weeps. Now she weeps (and now) rejoices; Now laments (and now) is judged; Now is judged (and now) is dying. Now no outlet is left or she wandering The labyrinth of woes has entered.[180] But Jesus said: Father, behold! A strife of woes upon Earth From thy breath has fallen, But she seeks to flee malignant chaos. And knows not how to win through it, For this cause send me, O Father, [Sidenote: p. 184.] Holding seals I will go down, Through entire æons I will pass, All mysteries I will disclose; The forms of the gods I will display; The secrets of the holy way Called Gnosis, I will hand down.

These things the Naassenes attempt, calling themselves Gnostics.[181] But since the error is many-headed and truly of diverse shape like the fabled Hydra, we, having struck off its heads at one blow by refutation, (and) using the rod of Truth, will utterly destroy the beast. For the remaining heresies differ little from this, they all being linked together by one spirit of error. But since they by changing the words and the names wish the heads of the serpent to be many, we shall not thus fail to refute them thoroughly as they will.

[Sidenote: p. 185.] 2. _Peratæ._[182]

12. There is also indeed a certain other (heresy), the Peratic, the blasphemy of whose (followers) against Christ has for many years evaded (us). Whose secret mysteries it now seems fitting for us to bring into the open. They suppose the cosmos to be one, divided into three parts. But of this triple division, one part according to them is, as it were, a single principle like a great source[183] which may be [Sidenote: p. 186.] cut by the mind into boundless sections. And the first and chiefest section according to them is the triad and (the one part of it)[184] is called Perfect Good and Fatherly Greatness.[185] But the second part of this triad of theirs is, as it were, a certain boundless multitude of powers which have come into being from themselves, while the third is (the world of) form. And the first is unbegotten and is good; and the second is good (and) self-begotten, while the third is begotten.[186] Whence they say expressly that there are three Gods, three _logoi_, three minds, and three men. For they assign to each part of the world of the divided divisibility, gods and _logoi_ and minds and men and the rest. But they say that from on high, from the unbegottenness and the first section of the cosmos, when the cosmos had already been brought to completion, there came down through causes which we shall declare later[187] in the days of Herod a certain triple-bodied and triple-powered[188] man called Christ, containing within Himself all the compounds[189] and powers from [Sidenote: p. 187.] the three parts of the cosmos. And this, he says is the saying: “The whole Pleroma was pleased to dwell within Him bodily and the whole godhead” of the Triad thus divided “is in Him.”[190] For, he says that there were brought down from the two overlying worlds, (to wit) the unbegotten and the self-begotten, unto this world in which we are, seeds of all powers. But what is the manner of their descent we shall see later.[191] Then he says that Christ was brought down from on high from the unbegottenness so that through His descent all the threefold divisions should be saved. For the things, he says, brought down below shall ascend through Him; but those which take counsel together against those brought down from above shall be banished and after they have been punished shall be rooted out. This, he says, is the saying: “The Son of Man came not into the world to destroy the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”[192] He calls “the world,” he says, the two overlying portions, (to wit) the unbegotten and the self-begotten. When the Scripture says: “Lest ye be judged with the world,”[193] he says, it means the third part of the cosmos (to wit) that of form. For the third part [Sidenote: p. 188.] which he calls the world must be destroyed, but the two overlying ones preserved from destruction.[194]

13. Let us first learn, then, how they who have taken this teaching from the astrologers insult Christ, working destruction for those who follow them in such error. For the astrologers, having declared the cosmos to be one, divided it[195] into the twelve fixed parts of the Zodiacal signs, and call the cosmos of the fixed Zodiacal signs one unwandering world. But the other, they say, is the world of the planets alike in power and in position and in number which exists as far as the Moon.[196] And that one world receives from the other a certain power and communion, and that things below partake of things above. But so that what is said shall be made plain, I will use in part the very words of the astrologers,[197] recalling to the readers what was said before in the place where we set forth the whole art of astrology. Their doctrines then are these: From the emanation of the stars the genitures of things below are influenced. For the Chaldæans, scrutinizing [Sidenote: p. 189.] the heavens with great care, said that (the seven stars) account for the active causes of everything which happens to us; but that the degrees of the Zodiacal circle work with them. (Then they divide the Zodiacal circle into) 12 parts, and each Zodiacal sign into 30 degrees and each degree into 60 minutes; for these they call the least and the undivided. And they call some of the Zodiacal signs male and others female, some bicorporal and others not, some tropical and others firm. Then there are male or female according as they have a nature co-operating in the begetting of males (or females). Moved by which, I think[198] the Pythagoricians[199] call the monad male, the dyad female, and the triad again male and in like manner the rest of the odd and even numbers. And some dividing each sign into dodecatemories employ [Sidenote: p. 190.] nearly the same plan. For example, in Aries they call the first dodecatemory Aries and masculine, its second Taurus and feminine, and its third Gemini and masculine, and so on with the other parts. And they say that Gemini and Sagittarius which stands opposite to it and Virgo and Pisces are bicorporal signs, but the others not. And in like manner, those signs are tropical in which the Sun turns about and makes the turnings of the ambient, as, for example, the sign Aries and its opposite Libra, Capricorn and Cancer. For in Aries, the spring turning occurs, in Capricorn the winter, in Cancer the summer and in Libra the autumn. These things also and the system concerning them we have briefly set forth in the book before this, whence the lover of learning can learn how Euphrates the Peratic and Celbes the Carystian, the founders of the heresy, altering only the names, have really set down like things, having also paid immoderate attention to the art. [Sidenote: p. 191.] For the astrologers also say that there are “terms” of the stars in which they deem the ruling stars to have greater power. For example in some (they do evil), but in others good, of which they call these malefic and those benefic. And they say that (the Planets) behold one another and are in harmony with one another as they appear in trine (or square). Now the stars beholding one another are figured in trine when they have a space of three signs between them, but in square if they have two. And as in the man the lower parts suffer with the head and the head suffers with the lower parts, thus do the things on earth [Sidenote: p. 192.] with those above the Moon. But (yet) there is a certain difference and want of sympathy between them since they have not one and the same unity.

This alliance and difference of the stars, although a Chaldæan (doctrine), those of whom we have spoken before have taken as their own and have falsified the name of truth. (For they) announce as the utterance of Christ a strife of aeons and a falling-away of good powers to the bad, and proclaim reconciliations of good and wicked.[200] Then they invoke Toparchs and Proastii,[201] making for themselves also very many other names which are not obvious but systematize unsystematically the whole idea of the astrologers about the stars. As they have thus laid the foundation of an enormous error they shall be completely refuted by our appropriate arrangement. For I shall set side by side with the aforesaid Chaldaic art of the astrologers some of the doctrines of the Peratics, from which comparison it will be [Sidenote: p. 193.] understood how the words of the Peratics are avowedly those of the astrologers, but not of Christ.

14. It seems well then to use for comparison a certain one of the books[202] magnified by them wherein it is said: “I am a voice of awaking from sleep in the aeon of the night, (and) now I begin to lay bare the power from Chaos. The power is the mud of the abyss, which raises the mire of the imperishable watery void, the whole power of the convulsion, pale as water, ever-moving, bearing with it the stationary, holding back those that tremble, setting free those that approach, relieving those that sigh, bringing down those that increase, a faithful steward of the traces of the winds, taking advantage of the things thrown up by the [Sidenote: p. 194.] twelve eyes of the Law,[203] showing a seal to the power which arranges by itself the onrushing unseen water which is called Thalassa.[204] Ignorance has called this power Kronos guarded with chains since he bound together the maze of the dense and cloudy and unknown and dark Tartarus. There are born after the image of this (power) Cepheus, Prometheus, Iapetus.[205] (The) power to whom Thalassa is entrusted is masculo-feminine, who traces back the hissing (water) from the twelve mouths of the twelve pipes and after preparing distributes it. (This power) is small and reduces the boisterous restraining rising (of the sea) and seals up the ways of her paths, so that nothing should declare war or suffer change. The Typhonic daughter of this (power) is the faithful guard of all sorts of waters. Her name is Chorzar. Ignorance calls her Poseidôn, after whose likeness came Glaucus, Melicertes, Iö,[206] Nebroë. He that is encircled with the 12-angled pyramid[207] and darkens the gate into the pyramid [Sidenote: p. 195.] with divers colours and perfects the whole blackness[208]--this one is called Core[209] whose 5 ministers are: first Ou, 2nd Aoai, 3rd Ouô, 4th Ouöab, 5th ... Other faithful stewards there are of his toparchy of day and night who rest in their authority. Ignorance has called them the wandering stars on which hangs perishable birth. Steward of the rising of the wind[210] is Carphasemocheir (and second) Eccabaccara, but ignorance calls these Curetes. (The) third ruler of the winds is Ariel[211] after whose image came Æolus (and) Briares. And ruler of the 12-houred night (is) Soclas[212] whom ignorance has called Osiris. After his likeness there were born Admetus, Medea, Hellen, Aethusa. Ruler of the 12-houred day-time is Euno. He is steward of the rising of the first-blessed[213] and ætherial (goddess) whom ignorance calls Isis. The sign of this (ruler) is the Dog-star[214] after whose image were born Ptolemy son of Arsinoë, Didyme, Cleopatra, Olympias. (The) right hand power of God is she whom [Sidenote: p. 196.] ignorance calls Rhea, after whose image were born Attis, Mygdon,[215] Oenone. The left-hand power has authority over nurture whom ignorance calls Demeter. Her name is Bena. After the likeness of this (god) were born Celeus, Triptolemus, Misyr,[216] Praxidice. (The) right-hand power has authority over seasons. Ignorance calls this (god) Mena after whose image were born, Bumegas,[217] Ostanes, Hermes Trismegistus, Curites, Zodarion, Petosiris, Berosos, Astrampsychos, Zoroaster. (The) left-hand power of fire. Ignorance calls him Hephæstus after whose image were born Erichthonius, Achilleus, Capaneus, Phæthon, Meleager, Tydeus, Enceladus, Raphael, Suriel,[218] Omphale. Three middle powers suspended in air (are) causes of birth. Ignorance calls them Fates, after whose image were born (the) house of Priam, (the) house of Laius, Ino, Autonoë, Agave, Athamas, Procne (the) Danaids, the Peliades. A masculo-feminine power there is ever childlike, who grows not old, (the) cause of beauty, of pleasure, of prime, of yearning, of desire, whom ignorance calls Eros, after whose [Sidenote: p. 197.] image were born Paris, Narcissus, Ganymede, Endymion, Tithonus, Icarius, Leda, Amymonê, Thetis, (the) Hesperides, Jason, Leander, Hero.” These are the Proastii up to Aether. For thus he inscribes the book.

15. The heresy of the Peratæ, it has been made easily apparent to all, has been adapted from the (art) of the astrologers with a change of names alone. And their other books include the same method, if any one cared to go through them. For, as I have said, they think the unbegotten and overlying things to be the causes of birth of the begotten, and that our world, which they call that of form, came into being by emanation, and that all those stars together which are beheld in the heaven become the causes of birth in this world, they changing their names as is to be seen from a comparison of the Proastii. And secondly after the same fashion indeed, as they say that the world came into being from the emanation of her[219] on high, thus they say that things here have their birth and death and are governed [Sidenote: p. 198.] by the emanation from the stars. Since then the astrologers know the Ascendant and Mid-heaven and the Descendant and the Anti-meridian, and as the stars sometimes move differently from the perpetual turning of the universe, and at other times there are other succeedents to the cardinal point and (other) cadents from the cardinal points, (the Peratæ) treating the ordinance of the astrologers as an allegory, picture the cardinal points as it were God and monad and lord of all generation, and the succeedent as the left hand and the cadent the right. When therefore any one reading their writings finds a power spoken of by them as right or left, let him refer to the centre, the succeedent and the cadent, and he will clearly perceive that their whole system of practice has been established on astrological teaching.

16. But they call themselves Peratæ, thinking that nothing which has its foundations in generation can escape the fate determined from birth for the begotten. For if anything, he says, is begotten it also perishes wholly, as it seemed also [Sidenote: p. 199.] to the Sibyl.[220] But, he says, we alone who know the compulsion of birth and the paths whereby man enters into the world and have been carefully instructed--we alone can pass through[221] and escape destruction. But water, he says, is destruction, and never, he says, did the world perish quicker than by water. But the water which rolls around the Proastii is, they say, Kronos. For such a power, he says, is of the colour of water and this power, that is Kronos, none of those who have been founded in generation can escape. For Kronos is set as a cause over every birth so that it shall be subject to destruction[222] and no birth could occur in which Kronos is not an impediment. This, he says is what the poets say and the gods (themselves) also fear:--

Let earth be witness thereto and wide heaven above And the water of Styx that flows below. The greatest of oaths and most terrible to the blessed gods.-- (Homer, _Odyssey_, vv. 184 ff.)

But not only do the poets say this, he says, but also the wisest of the Greeks, whereof Heraclitus is one, who says, [Sidenote: p. 200.] “For water becomes death to souls.”[223]

This death (the Peratic) says seizes the Egyptians in the Red Sea with their chariots. And all the ignorant, he says, are Egyptians and this he says is the going out from Egypt (that is) from the body. For they think the body little Egypt (and) that it crosses over the Red Sea, that is, the water of destruction which is Kronos, and that it is beyond the Red Sea, that is birth, and comes into the desert, that is, outside generation where are together the gods of destruction and the god of salvation. But the gods of destruction, he says, are the stars which bring upon those coming into being the necessity of mutable generation. These, he said, Moses called the serpents of the desert which bite and cause to perish those who think they have crossed the Red Sea. Therefore, he says, to those sons of Israel who were bitten in the desert, Moses displayed the true and perfect serpent, those who believed on which were not bitten in the desert, [Sidenote: p. 201.] that is, by the Powers. None then, he says, can save and set free those brought forth from the land of Egypt, that is, from the body and from this world, save only the perfect serpent, the full of the full.[224] He who hopes on this, he says, is not destroyed by the serpents of the desert, that is, by the gods of generation. It is written, he says, in a book of Moses.[225] This serpent, he says, is the Power which followed Moses, the rod which was turned into a serpent. And the serpents of the magicians who withstood the power of Moses in Egypt were the gods of destruction; but the rod of Moses overthrew them all and caused them to perish.

This universal serpent, he says, is the wise word of Eve. This, he says, is the mystery of Edem, this the river flowing out of Edem, this the mark which was set on Cain so that all that found him should not kill him. This, he says, is (that) Cain whose sacrifice was not accepted by the god of this world; but he accepted the bloody sacrifice of Abel, for the lord of this world delights in blood.[226] He it is, he says, who in the last days appeared in man’s shape in the [Sidenote: p. 202.] time of Herod, born after the image of Joseph who was sold from the hand of his brethren and to whom alone belonged the coat of many colours. This, he says, is he after the image of Esau whose garment was blessed when he was not present, who did not receive, he says, the blind man’s blessing, but became rich elsewhere taking nothing from the blind one, whose face Jacob saw as a man might see the face of God. Concerning whom he says, it is written that: “Nebrod was a giant hunting before the Lord.”[227] There are, he says, as many counterparts of him as there were serpents seen in the desert biting the sons of Israel, from which that perfect one that Moses set up delivered those that were bitten. This, he says, is the saying: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”[228] After his likeness was the brazen serpent in the desert which Moses set up. The similitude of this alone is always seen in the heaven in light. This he says is the mighty beginning about which it is written. About this he says is the saying: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and [Sidenote: p. 203.] the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him nothing was. That which was in Him was life.”[229] And in Him, he says, Eve came into being (and) Eve is life. She, he says is Eve, mother of all living[230] (the) nature common (to all), that is, to gods, angels, immortals, mortals, irrational beings, and rational ones; for, he says, “to all” speaking collectively. And if the eyes of any are blessed, he says, he will see when he looks upward to heaven the fair image of the serpent in the great summit[231] of heaven turning about and becoming the source of all movement of all present things. And (the beholder) will know that without Him there is nothing framed of heavenly or of earthly things or of things below the earth--neither night, nor moon, nor fruits, nor generation, nor wealth, nor wayfaring, nor generally is there anything of things which are that He does not point out. In this, he says, is the great wonder beheld in the heavens by those who can see.

For against this summit (that is) the head which is the most difficult of all things to be believed by those who know it not,

[Sidenote: p. 204.] “The setting and rising mingle with one another.”-- (Aratus, _Phain._, v. 62.)

This it is concerning which ignorance speaks:--

“The Dragon winds, great wonder of dread portent.”-- (_Ibid._, v. 46.)

and on either side of him Corona and Lyra are ranged and above, by the very top of his head, a piteous man, the Kneeler, is seen

“Holding the sole of the right foot of winding Draco.”-- (_Ibid._, v. 70.)

And in the rear of the Kneeler is the imperfect serpent grasped with both hands by Ophiuchus and prevented from touching the Crown lying by the Perfect Serpent.[232]

17. This is the variegated wisdom of the Peratic heresy, which is difficult to describe completely, it being so tangled through having been framed from the art of astrology. So far as it was possible, therefore, we have set forth all its force in few words. But in order to expound their whole mind in epitome we think it right to add this: According to them the universe is Father, Son and Matter.[233] [Sidenote: p. 205.] Of these three every one contains within himself boundless powers. Now midway between Matter and the Father sits the Son, the Word, the Serpent, ever moving himself towards the immoveable Father and towards Matter (which itself) is moved. And sometimes he turns himself towards the Father and receives the powers in his own person,[234] and when he has thus received them he turns towards Matter; and Matter being without quality and formless takes pattern from the forms[235] which the Son has taken as patterns from the Father. But the Son takes pattern from the Father unspeakably and silently and unchangeably, that is, as Moses says the colours of the (sheep) that longed,[236] flowed from the rods set up in the drinking-places. In such a way also did the powers flow from the Son to Matter according to the yearning of the power which (flowed) from the rods upon the things conceived. But the difference and unlikeness of the colours which flowed from the rods through the waters into the sheep is, he says, the difference of corruptible and incorruptible birth. Or rather, as a painter while taking nothing from the animals (he paints), yet transfers with his pencil to the drawing-tablet all their forms, thus the Son by his own power transfers to Matter the [Sidenote: p. 206.] types[237] of the Father. All things that are here are therefore the Father’s types and nothing else. For if any one, he says has strength enough to comprehend from the things here that he is a type from the Father on high transferred hither and made into a body, as in the conception from the rod, he becomes white,[238] (and) wholly of one substance[239] with the Father who is in the heavens, and returns thither. But if he does not light upon this doctrine, nor discover the necessity of birth, like an abortion brought forth in a night he perishes in a night. Therefore, says he, when the Saviour speaks of “Your Father who is in heaven”[240] He means him from whom the Son takes the types and transfers them hither. And when He says “Your father is a manslayer from the beginning”[241] he means the Ruler and Fashioner of Matter who receiving the types distributed by the Son has produced children here. Who is a manslayer from the beginning because his work makes for corruption and death.[242] None therefore, he says, can be saved nor [Sidenote: p. 207.] return (on high) save by the Son who is the Serpent. For as he brought from on high the Father’s types, so he again carries up from here those of them who have been awakened and have become types of the Father, transferring them thither from here as hypostatized from the Unhypostatized[243] One. This, he says, is the saying “I am the Door.” But he transfers them, he says (as the light of vision)[244] to those whose eyelids are closed, as the naphtha draws everywhere the fire to itself--or rather as the magnet the iron but nothing else, or as the sea-hawk’s spine the gold but nothing else, or as again (as) the chaff is drawn by the amber.[245] Thus, he says, the perfect and consubstantial race which has been made the image[246] (of the Father) but nought else is again led from the world by the Serpent, just as it was sent down here by him.

For the proof of this they bring forward the anatomy of the brain, likening the cerebrum to the Father from its immobility, and the cerebellum to the Son from its being moved and existing in serpent form. Which (last) they imagine ineffably and without giving any sign to attract [Sidenote: p. 208.] through the pineal gland the spiritual and life-giving substance emanating from the Blessed One.[247] Receiving which the cerebellum, as the Son silently transfers the forms to Matter, spreads abroad the seeds and genera of things born after the flesh, to the spinal marrow. By the use of this simile, they seem to introduce cleverly their ineffable mysteries handed down in silence which it is not lawful for us to utter. Nevertheless they will easily be comprehended from what I have said.

18. But since I think I have set forth clearly the Peratic heresy and by many words have made plain what had escaped (notice), and since it has mixed up everything with everything concealing its own peculiar poison, it seems right to proceed no further with the charge, the opinions laid down by them being sufficient accusation against them.[248]

3. _The Sethiani._

[Sidenote: p. 209.] 19. Let us see then what the Sethians say.[249] They are of opinion[250] that there are three definite principles of the universals, and that each of the principles contains boundless powers. But what they mean by powers let him judge who hears them speak thus: Everything which you understand by your mind or which you pass by unthought of, is formed by nature to become each of these principles, as in the soul of man every art which is taught. For example, he says, that a boy will become a piper if he spend some time with a piper, or a geometrician if he does so with a geometrician, or a grammarian with a grammarian, or a carpenter with a carpenter, and to one in close contact with other trades it will happen in the same way. But the substance of the principles, he says, are light and darkness; and between them there is uncontaminated spirit. But the spirit which is set between the darkness below and the light on high, is not breath like a gust of wind or some little [Sidenote: p. 210.] breeze which can be perceived, but resembles some faint perfume of balsam or of incense artificially compounded, as a power penetrating by force of a fragrance inconceivable and better than can be said in speech. But since the light is above and the darkness below and the spirit as has been said between them, the light naturally shines like a ray of the sun on high on the underlying darkness, and again the fragrance of the spirit having the middle place spreads abroad and is borne in all directions, as we observe the fragrance of the incense burnt in the fire carried everywhere. And such being the power of the triply divided, the power of the spirit and of the light together is in the darkness which is ranged below them. But the darkness is a fearful water, into which the light with the spirit is drawn down and transformed into such a nature (as the water).[251] And the darkness is not witless, but prudent completely, and knows that if the light be taken from the darkness, the darkness remains desolate, viewless, without light, [Sidenote: p. 211.] powerless, idle, and strengthless. Wherefore with all its sense and wit it is forced to detain within itself the brilliance and spark of the light with the fragrance of the spirit. And an image of their nature is to be seen in the face of man, (to wit) the pupil of the eye dark from the underlying fluids, (and) lighted up by (the) spirit. As then the darkness seeks after the brilliance, that it may hold the spark as a slave and may see, so do the light and the spirit seek after their own power, and make haste to raise up and take back to themselves their powers which have been mingled with the underlying dark and fearful water.[252] But all the powers of the three principles being everywhere boundless in number are each of them wise and understanding as regards its own substance, and the countless multitude of them being wise and understanding, whenever they remain by themselves are all at rest. But if one power draws near to another, the unlikeness of (the things in) juxtaposition effects a certain movement and activity formed from the movement, by the coming together and juxtaposition of the meeting [Sidenote: p. 212.] powers. For the coming together of the powers comes to pass like some impression of a seal struck by close conjunction for the sealing of the substances brought up (to it).[253] Since then the powers of the three principles are boundless in number and the conjunctions of the boundless powers (also) boundless, there must needs be produced images of boundless seals. Now these images are the forms[254] of the different animals.

From the first great conjunction then of the three principles came into being a certain great form of a seal, (to wit) heaven and earth. And heaven and earth are planned very like a matrix having the navel[255] in the midst. And if, he says, one wishes to have this design under his eyes, let him examine with skill the pregnant womb of any animal he pleases, and he will discover the type of heaven and earth and of all those things between which lie unchangeably below. And the appearance of heaven and earth became by the first conjunction such as to be like a womb. But again between heaven and earth boundless conjunctions of powers have occurred. And each conjunction wrought and stamped[256] nothing else than a seal of [Sidenote: p. 213.] heaven and earth like a womb. But within this (the earth) there grew from the boundless seals boundless multitudes of different animals. And into all this infinity which is under heaven there was scattered and distributed among the different animals, together with the light, the fragrance of the spirit from on high.

Then there came into being from the water the first-born[257] principle (to wit) a wind violent and turbulent and the cause of all generation. For making some agitation in the waters it raises waves in them. But the motion of the waves as if it were some impregnating impulse is a beginning of generation of man or beast when it is driven onward swollen by the impulse of the spirit. But when this wave has been raised from the water and made pregnant in the natural way, and has received within itself the feminine power of reproduction, it retains the light scattered from on high together with the fragrance of the spirit--that [Sidenote: p. 214.] is mind given shape in the different species.[258] Which (mind) is a perfect God, who is brought down from the unbegotten light on high and from the spirit into man’s nature as into a temple, by the force of nature and the movement of the wind. It has been engendered from the water (and) commingled and mixed with the bodies as if it were (the) salt of the things which are and a light of the darkness struggling to be freed from the bodies and not able to find deliverance and its way out. For some smallest spark from the light (has been mingled) with the fragrance from above (_i. e._ from the spirit), like a ray (making composition of things dissolved and) solution of things compounded as, he says, is said in a psalm.[259] Therefore every thought and care of the light on high is how and in what way the mind may be set free from the death of the wicked and dark body (and) from the Father of that which is below, who is the wind which raised the waves in agitation and disorder [Sidenote: p. 215.] and has begotten Nous his own perfect son, not being his own (son) as to substance.[260] For he was a ray from on high from that perfect light overpowered in the dark and fearful bitter and polluted water, which (ray) is the shining spirit borne above the water. When then the waves (raised from the) waters [have received within themselves the feminine power of reproduction, they detain in[261]] the different species, like some womb, (the light) scattered (from on high), (with the fragrance of the spirit) as is seen in all animals.

But the wind at once violent and turbulent is borne along like the hissing of a serpent. First then from the wind, that is from the serpent, came the principle of generation in the way aforesaid,[262] all things having received the principle of generation at the same time. When then the light and the spirit were received into the unpurified [Sidenote: p. 216.] and much suffering disordered womb, the serpent, the wind of the darkness, the first-born of the waters entering in, begets man, and the unpurified womb neither loves nor recognizes any other form (but the serpent’s).[263] Then the perfect Word of the light on high, having been made like the beast, the serpent, entered into the unpurified womb, beguiling it by its likeness to the beast, so that it might loose the bands which encircle the Perfect Mind which was begotten in the impurity of the womb by the first-born of the water, (to wit) the serpent, the beast. This, he says, is the form of the slave[264] and this the need for the descent of the Word of God into the womb of a Virgin. But it is not enough, he says, that the Perfect Man, the Word, has entered into the womb of a virgin and has loosed the pangs which were in that darkness. But in truth after entering into the foul mysteries of the womb, He was washed[265] and drank of the cup of living bubbling water, which he must needs drink who was about to do off the slave-like form and do on a heavenly garment.

[Sidenote: p. 217.] 20. This is what the champions of the Sethianian doctrines say, to put it shortly. But their system is made up of sayings by physicists and of words spoken in respect of other matters, which they transfer to their own system and explain as we have said. And they say that Moses also supported their theory when he said “Darkness, gloom and whirlwind.” These, he says, are the three words. Or when he says that there were three born in Paradise, Adam, Eve (and the) Serpent; or when he says three (others), Cain, Abel (and) Seth; and yet again three, Shem, Ham (and) Japhet; or when he speaks of three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, (and) Jacob; or when he says that there existed three days before the Sun and Moon; or when he says that there are three laws (the) prohibitive, (the) permissive and the punitive. And a prohibitive law is: “From every tree in Paradise thou mayest eat the fruit, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, eat not.” But in this saying: “Go forth from thine own land, and from thy kindred and (thou shalt come) hither into a land which I shall show thee.” This law he says is permissive for he who chooses may go forth and he who chooses may remain. But the law is punitive which says “Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not murder”--for to each of these sins there is a penalty.[266]

[Sidenote: p. 218.] But the whole teaching of their system is taken from the ancient theologists Musæus, Linus and he who most especially makes known the initiations and mysteries (to wit), Orpheus. For their discourse about the womb is also that of Orpheus; and the phallus, which is virility, is thus explicitly mentioned in the _Bacchica_ of Orpheus.[267] And these things were made the subject of initiation and were handed down to men, before the initiatory rite of Celeus, Triptolemus, Demeter, Core and Dionysos in Eleusis, at Phlium in Attica. For earlier than the Eleusinian Mysteries are the secret rites of the so-called Great (Mother) in Phlium. For there is in that (town) a porch, and on the porch to this day is engraved the representation of all the words spoken (in them). [Sidenote: p. 219.] Many things are engraved on that porch concerning which Plutarch also makes discourse in his ten books against Empedocles. And on the doors is engraved a certain old man grey-haired, winged, having his _pudendum_ stretched forth, pursuing a fleeing woman of a blue colour. And there is written over the old man “Phaos ruentes” and over the woman “Pereēphicola.” But “phaos ruentes” seems to be the light according to the theory of the Sethians and the “phicola” the dark water, while between them is at an interval the harmony of the spirit. And the name of “Phaos ruentes” denotes the rushing below of the light as they say from on high. So that we may reasonably say that the Sethians celebrate among themselves (rites) in some degree akin to the Phliasian Mysteries of the Great (Mother).[268] And to the triple division of things the poet seems to bear witness when he says:--

“And in three lots were all things divided And each drew his own domain.”-- (Homer, _Il._, XV, 189.[269])

that is each of the threefold divisions has taken power. [Sidenote: p. 220.] And, as for the underlying dark water below, that the light has plunged into it and that the spark borne down (into it) ought to be restored and taken on high from it, the all-wise Sethians seem to have here borrowed from Homer when he says:--

“Let earth be witness and wide heaven above And the water of Styx that flows below The greatest oath and most terrible to the blessed gods.”[270]-- (_Il._ XV, 36-38.)

That is, the gods, according to Homer, think water something ill-omened and frightful, wherefore the theory of the Sethians says it is frightful to the Nous.

21. This is what they say and other things like it in endless writings. And they persuade those who are their disciples to read the theory of Composition and Mixture[271] which is studied by many others and by Andronicus the Peripatetic. The Sethians then say that the theory about Composition and Mixture is to be framed after this fashion: The light ray from on high has been compounded and the [Sidenote: p. 221.] very small spark has been lightly mingled[272] in the dark waters below, and (these two) have united and exist in one mass as one odour (results) from the many kinds of incense on the fire. And the expert who has as his test an acute sense of smell ought to delicately distinguish from the sole smell of the incense the different kinds of it set on the fire; as (for example) if it be storax and myrrh and frankincense or if anything else be mixed with it. And they make use of other comparisons, as when they say that if brass has been mixed with gold, a certain process[273] has been discovered which separates the gold from the brass. And in like manner if tin or brass or anything of the same kind be found mixed with silver, these by some better process of alloy are also separated. But even now any one distinguishes water mixed with wine. Thus, he says, if all things are mingled together they are distinguished. And truly, he says, learn from the animals. For when the animal is dead each (of its parts) is separated (from the rest) and thus when dissolved, the animal disappears. This he says is the saying: “I come not to bring peace upon the earth but a sword”[274]--that is to cut in twain and separate the things [Sidenote: p. 222.] which have been compounded together. For each of the compounds is cut in twain and separated when it lights on its proper place. For as there is one place of composition for all the animals, so there has been set up one place of dissolution, which no man knoweth, he says, save only we who are born again, spiritual not fleshly, whose citizenship is in the heavens above.

With these insinuations they corrupt their hearers, both when they misuse words, turning good sayings into bad as they wish, and when they conceal their own iniquity by what comparisons they choose. All things then, he says, which are compounds have their own peculiar place and run towards their own kindred things as the iron to the magnet, the straw to the amber, and the gold to the sea-hawk’s spine.[275] And thus the (ray) of light which was mingled with the water having received from teaching and learning (the knowledge of) its own proper place hastens to the Word come from on high in slave-like form and becomes with the Word a Word where the Word is, more (quickly) than the iron (flies) to the magnet.

[Sidenote: p. 223.] And that these things are so, he says, and that all compounded things are separated at their proper places, learn (thus):--There is among the Persians in the city Ampa near the Tigris a well, and near this well and above it has been built a cistern having three outlets. From which well if one draws, and takes up in a jar what is drawn from the well whatever it is and pours it into the cistern hard by; when it comes to the outlets and is received from each outlet in one vessel, it separates itself. And in the first outlet is exhibited an incrustation[276] of salt, and in the second bitumen, and in the third oil. But the oil is black, as he says Herodotus also recounts,[277] has a heavy odour and the Persians call it _rhadinace_. This simile of the well, say the Sethians, suffices for the truth of their proposition better than all that has been said above.

22. The opinion of the Sethians seems to us to have been made tolerably plain. But if any one wishes to learn the whole of their system let him read the book inscribed _Paraphrase (of) Seth_; for all their secrets he will find there enshrined.[278] But since we have set forth the things of the [Sidenote: p. 224.] Sethians[279] let us see also what Justinus thinks.

4. _Justinus._[280]

23. Justinus, being utterly opposed to every teaching of the Holy Scriptures, and also to the writing or speech[281] of the blessed Evangelists, since the Word taught his disciples saying: “Go not into the way of the Gentiles”[282]--which is plainly: Give no heed to the vain teaching of the Gentiles--seeks to bring back his hearers to the marvel-mongering of the Greeks and what is taught by it. He sets out word for word and in detail the fabulous tales of the Greeks, but neither teaches first hand[283] nor hands down his own complete mystery unless he has bound the dupe by an oath. Thereafter he explains the myth for the purpose of winning souls,[284] so that those who read the numberless follies of the books shall have the fables as consolation[285]--as if one tramping along a road and coming across an inn should see fit to rest--and so that when they have again turned to the [Sidenote: p. 225.] full study of the things read, they may not detest them until, being led on by the rush of the crowd, they have plunged into the offence artfully contrived by him, having first bound them by fearful oaths neither to utter nor to abandon his teaching and compelling them to accept it. Thus he delivers to them the mysteries impiously sought out by him, using as aforesaid the Greek myths and partly corrupted books according to what they indicate of the aforesaid heresies. For they all, drawn by one spirit, are led into a deep pit (of error) but each narrates and mythologizes the same things differently. But they all call themselves especially Gnostics, as if they alone had drunk in the knowledge of the perfect and good.

24. But swear, says Justinus, if you wish to know the things “which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man,”[286] (that is) Him who is good above all things, the Highest, to keep the ineffable secrets of the teaching. For our Father also, when he saw the Good One and was perfected by him, kept silence as to [Sidenote: p. 226.] the secrets[287] and swore as it is written: “The Lord sware and will not repent.”[288] Having then thus sealed up these (secrets), he turns their minds to many myths through a quantity (of books), and thus leads to the Good One, perfecting the mystæ by unspoken mysteries. But we shall not travel through more (of his works). We shall give as a sample the ineffable things from one book of his, it being one which he clearly thinks of high repute. It is inscribed _Baruch_.[289] We shall disclose one myth set forth in it by him out of many, it being also in Herodotus. Having transformed[290] this, he tells it to his hearers as new, the whole system of his teaching being made up out of it.

25. Now Herodotus[291] says that Heracles when driving Geryon’s oxen from Erytheia[292] came to Scythia and being wearied by the way lay down to sleep in some desert place for a short time. While he was asleep his horse disappeared, mounted on which he had made his long journey.[293] On waking he made search over most of the desert in the attempt to find his horse. He entirely misses the horse, [Sidenote: p. 227.] but finding a certain semi-virgin girl[294] in the desert, he asks her if she had seen the horse anywhere. The girl said that she had seen it, but would not at first show it to him unless Heracles would go with her to have connection with her. But Herodotus says that the upper part of the girl as far as the groin was that of a virgin, but that the whole body below the groin had in some sort the frightful appearance of a viper. But Heracles, being in a hurry to find his horse yielded to the beast. For he knew her and made her pregnant, and foretold to her after connection that she had in her womb three sons by him who would be famous.[295] And he bade her when they were born to give them the names Agathyrsus, Gelonus, and Scytha. And taking the horse from the beast-like girl as his reward, he went away with his oxen. But after this, there is a long story in Herodotus.[296] Let us dismiss it at present. But we will explain something of what Justinus teaches when he turns this myth into (one of) the generation of the things of the universe.

26. This he says: There were three unbegotten principles of the universals,[297] two male and one female. And [Sidenote: p. 228.] of the male, one is called the Good One, he alone being thus called, and he has foreknowledge of the universals. And the second is the Father of all begotten things, not having foreknowledge and being (unknowable and)[298] invisible. But the female is without foreknowledge, passionate, two-minded, two-bodied, in all things resembling Herodotus’ myth, a virgin to the groin and a viper below, as says Justinus. And this maiden is called Edem and Israel. These, he says, are the principles of the universals, their roots and sources, by which all things came into being, beside which nothing was. Then the Father without foreknowledge, beholding the semi-virgin, who was Edem, came to desire of her. This Father, he says, is called Elohim.[299] Not less did Edem desire Elohim, and desire brought them together into one favour of love. And the Father from such congress begot on Edem twelve angels of his own. And the names of these angels of the Father are: Michael, Amen, Baruch, Gabriel, Esaddæus.[300]... And the names of the angels of the Mother which Edem created are likewise set down. These are: Babel, Achamoth, Naas, Bel, Belias, [Sidenote: p. 229.] Satan, Saêl, Adonaios, Kavithan, Pharaoh, Karkamenos, Lathen.[301] Of these twenty-four angels the paternal ones join with the Father and do everything in accordance with his will, but the maternal angels (side) with the Mother, Edem. And he says that Paradise is the multitude of these angels taken together; concerning which Moses says: “God planted a Paradise in Edem towards the East,”[302] that is, towards the face of Edem that Edem might ever behold Paradise, that is, the angels. And the angels of this Paradise are allegorically called trees,[303] and Baruch, the third angel of the Father, is the Tree of Life, and Naas, the third angel of the Mother is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.[304] For thus, he says, the (words) of Moses ought to be interpreted, saying: Moses declared them covertly, because all do not come to the truth.

But he says also when Paradise was produced from the mutual pleasure of Elohim and Edem, the angels of Elohim taking (dust) from the fairest earth, that is, not from the beast-like parts of Edem, but from the man-like and cultivated regions of the earth above the groin, create man. But from the beast-like parts, he says, the wild beasts and [Sidenote: p. 230.] other animals are produced. Now they made man as a symbol of their[305] unity and good-will and placed in him the powers of each, Edem (supplying) the soul and Elohim the spirit.[306] And there thus came into being a certain seal, as it were and actual memorial of love and an everlasting sign of the marriage of Elohim and Edem, (to wit) a man who is Adam. And in like manner also, Eve came into being as Moses has written, an image and a sign and a seal to be for ever preserved of Edem. And there was likewise placed in Eve the image, a soul from Edem but a spirit from Elohim. And commands were given to them, “Increase and multiply and replenish the earth,”[307] that is Edem, for so he would have it written. For the whole of her own power Edem brought to Elohim as it were some dowry in marriage. Whence, he says, in imitation of that first marriage, women unto this day bring freely to their husbands in obedience to a certain divine and ancestral law (a dowry) which is that of Edem to Elohim.

But when heaven and earth and the things which were therein had been created as it is written by Moses, the twelve angels of the Mother were divided into four authorities and each quarter, he says, is called a river, (to wit) Phison and Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates, as Moses says: [Sidenote: p. 231.] These twelve angels visiting the four parts encompass and arrange the world, having a certain satrapial[308] power over the world by the authority of Edem. But they abide not always in their own places, but as it were in a circular dance, they go about exchanging place for place, and at certain times and intervals giving up the places assigned to them. When Phison has rule over the places, famine, distress and affliction come to pass in that part of the world, for miserly is the array of these angels. And in like manner in each of the quarters according to the nature and power of each, come evil times and troops of diseases. And evermore the flow of evil according to the rule of the quarters, as if they were rivers, by the will of Edem goes unceasingly about the world.

But from some such cause as this did the necessity of evil come about.[309] When Elohim had built and fashioned [Sidenote: p. 232.] the world from mutual pleasure, he wished to go up to the highest parts of heaven and to see whether any of the things of creation lacked aught. And he took his own angels with him, for he was (by nature) one who bears upward, and left below Edem, for she being earth did not wish to follow her spouse on high. Then Elohim coming to the upper limit of heaven and beholding a light better than that which himself had fashioned, said: “Open unto me the gates that I may enter in and acknowledge the Lord: For I thought that I was the Lord.”[310] And a voice from the light answered him, saying: “This is the gate of the Lord (and) the just enter through it.” And straightway the gate was opened, and the Father entered without his angels into the presence of the Good One and saw “what eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man.” Then the Good One says to him, “Sit thou on my right hand.”[311] But the Father says to the Good One: “Suffer me, O Lord, to overturn the world which I have made; for my spirit is bound in men and I wish to recover it.” Then says the Good One to him: “While with me thou canst do no evil; for thou and Edem made the world from mutual pleasure. Let therefore Edem hold creation [Sidenote: p. 233.] while she will;[312] but do thou abide with me.” Then Edem knowing that she had been abandoned by Elohim was grieved, and sat beside her own angels and adorned herself gloriously lest haply Elohim coming to desire of her should descend to her.

But since Elohim being ruled by the Good One did not come down to Edem, she gave command to Babel, who is Aphrodite, to bring about fornication and dissolutions of marriage among men, in order that as she was separated from Elohim, so also might the (spirit) of Elohim which is in men be tortured, (and) grieved by such separations and might suffer the same things as she did on being abandoned. And Edem gave great power to her third angel Naas,[313] that he might punish with all punishments the spirit of Elohim which is in men, so that through the spirit Elohim might be punished for having left his spouse contrary to their vows. The Father Elohim seeing this sent forth his third angel Baruch to the help of the spirit which is in men. [Sidenote: p. 234.] Then Baruch came again and stood in the midst of the angels--for the angels are Paradise in the midst of which he stood--and gave commandment to the man: “From every tree which is in Paradise freely eat, but from (the tree) of Knowledge of Good and Evil eat not,”[314] which tree is Naas. That is to say: Obey the eleven other angels of Edem for the eleven have passions, but have no transgression. But Naas had transgression, for he went in unto Eve and beguiled her and committed adultery with her, which is a breach of the Law. And he went in also unto Adam and used him as a boy which is also a breach of the Law.[315] Thence came adultery and sodomy.

From that time vices bore sway over men, and the good things came from a single source, the Father. For he, having gone up to the presence of the Good One showed the way to those who wished to go on high; but his having withdrawn from Edem made a source of ills to the spirit of [Sidenote: p. 235.] the Father which is in men. Therefore Baruch was sent to Moses, and through him spoke to the sons of Israel that he might turn them towards the Good One. But the third[316] (angel Naas) by means of the soul which came from Edem to Moses as also to all men, darkened the commandments of Baruch and made them listen to his own. Therefore the soul is arrayed against the spirit and the spirit against the soul.[317] For the soul is Edem and the spirit Elohim, each of them being in all mankind, both females and males. Again after this, Baruch was sent to the Prophets, so that by their means the spirit which dwells in man might hearken and flee from Edem and the device of wickedness[318] as the Father Elohim had fled. And in like manner and by the same contrivance, Naas by the soul which inhabits man along with the spirit of the Father seduced the Prophets, and they were all led astray and did not follow the words of Baruch which Elohim had commanded.

[Sidenote: p. 236.] In the sequel, Elohim chose Heracles as a prophet out of the uncircumcision and sent him that he might fight against the twelve angels of the creation of the wicked ones. These are the twelve contests of Heracles which he fought in their order from the first to the last against the lion, the bear, the wild boar,[319] and the rest. For these are the names of the nations which have been changed, they say, by the action of the angels of the Mother. But when he seemed to have prevailed, Omphale, who is Babel or Aphrodite[320] becomes connected with him and leads astray Heracles, strips him of his power (which is) the commands of Baruch which Elohim commanded, and puts other clothes on him, her own robe, which is the power of Edem who is below. And thus the power of prophecy[321] of Heracles and his works become imperfect.

Last of all in the days of Herod the king, Baruch is again sent below by Elohim and coming to Nazareth finds Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary,[322] a boy of twelve years old, feeding sheep, and teaches Him all things from the beginning which came about from Edem and Elohim and the things [Sidenote: p. 237.] which shall be hereafter, and he said: “All the prophets before thee were led astray. Strive, therefore, O Jesus, Son of Man, that thou be not led astray, but preach this word unto men. And proclaim to them the things touching the Father and the Good One, and go on high to the Good One and sit there with Elohim the Father of us all.” And Jesus hearkened to the angel, saying: “Lord, I will do all (these) things,” and He preached. Then Naas wished to lead astray this one also (but Jesus did not wish to hearken to him)[323] for He remained faithful to Baruch. Then Naas, angered because he could not lead Him astray, made Him to be crucified. But He, leaving the body of Edem on the Cross, went on high to the Good One. But He said to Edem: “Woman, receive thy Son,”[324] that is the natural and earthly man, and commending[325] the spirit into the hands of the Father went on high to the presence of the Good One.

But the Good One is Priapus, who before anything was, was created. Whence he is called Priapus because he previously made[326] all things. Wherefore he says he is set up before every temple[327] being honoured by the whole creation and in the streets bears the blossoms of creation on his head, that is the fruits of creation of which he is the [Sidenote: p. 238.] cause having first made the creation which before did not exist. When therefore you hear men say that a swan came upon Leda and begot children from her, the swan is Elohim and Leda is Edem. And when men say that an eagle came upon Ganymede, the eagle is Naas and Ganymede is Adam. And when they say that the gold came upon Danae and begot children from her, the gold is Elohim and Danae is Edem. And likewise they making parallels in the same way teach all such words as bring in myths. When then the Prophets say: “Hear O Heaven and give ear O Earth, the Lord has spoken,”[328] Heaven means, he says, the spirit which is in man from Elohim and Earth the soul which is in man (together) with the spirit, and the Lord means Baruch, and Israel, Edem. For Edem is also called Israel the spouse of Elohim. “Israel,” he says, “knew me not; for if she had known that I was with the Good One, she would not have punished the spirit which is in man through the Father’s ignorance.”

27. Afterwards ... is written also the oath in the first [Sidenote: p. 239.] book which is inscribed Baruch which those swear who are about to hear these mysteries and to be perfected[329] by the Good One. Which oath, he says, our Father Elohim swore when in the presence of the Good One and having sworn did not repent, touching which, he says, it is written: “The Lord sware and did not repent.” This is that oath: “I swear by Him who is above all, the Good One, to preserve these mysteries and to utter them to none, nor to turn away from the Good One to creation.” And when he has sworn that oath he enters into the presence of the Good One and sees “what eye hath not seen nor ear heard and it has not entered into the heart of man,” and he drinks from the living water, which is their font, as they think, the well of living, sparkling water. For there is a distinction, he says, between water and water; and there is the water below the firmament of the bad creation, wherein are baptized[330] the earthly and natural men, and there is the living water [Sidenote: p. 240.] above the firmament of the Good One in which Elohim was baptized and having been baptized did not repent. And when the prophet declares, he says, to take unto himself a wife of whoredom because the earth whoring has committed whoredom from behind the Lord,[331] that is Edem from Elohim. In these words, he says, the prophet speaks clearly the whole mystery, but he was not hearkened to by the wickedness of Naas. In that same fashion also they hand down other prophetic sayings in many books. But pre-eminent among them is the book inscribed Baruch in which he who reads will know the whole management of their myth.

Now, though I have met with many heresies, beloved, I have met with none worse than this. But truly, as the saying is, we ought, imitating his Heracles, to cleanse the Augean dunghill or rather trench, having fallen into which his followers will never be washed clean nor indeed be able to come up out of it.

28. Since then we have set forth the designs of Justinus the Gnostic falsely so called, it seems fitting to set forth also [Sidenote: p. 241.] in the succeeding books the tenets of the heresies which follow him[332] and to leave none of them unrefuted; the things said by them being quite sufficient when exposed to make an example of them, if and only their hidden and unspeakable (mysteries) would leap to light into which the senseless are hardly and with much toil initiated.[333] Let us see now what Simon says.

END OF VOL. I.

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 1: In this chapter, Hippolytus treats of what is probably a late form of the Ophite heresy, certainly one of the first to enter into rivalry with the Catholic Church. For its doctrines and practices, the reader must be referred to the chapter on the Ophites in the translator’s _Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity_, vol. II; but it may be said here that it seems to have sprung from a combination of the corrupt Judaism then practised in Asia Minor with the Pagan myths or legends prevalent all over Western Asia, which may some day be traced back to the Sumerians and the earliest civilization of which we have any record. Yet the Ophites admitted the truth of the Gospel narrative, and asserted the existence of a Supreme Being endowed with the attributes of both sexes and manifesting Himself to man by means of a Deity called His son, who was nevertheless identified with both the masculine and feminine aspects of his Father. This triad, which the Ophites called the First Man, the Second Man, and the First Woman or Holy Spirit, they represented as creating the planetary worlds as well as the “world of form,” by the intermediary of an inferior power called Sophia or Wisdom and her son Jaldabaoth, who is expressly stated to be the God of the Jews.

All this we knew before the discovery of our text from the statements of heresiologists like St. Irenæus and Epiphanius; but Hippolytus goes further than any other author by connecting these Ophite theories with the worship of the Mother of the Gods or Cybele, the form under which the triune deity of Western Asia was best known in Europe. The unnamed Naassene or Ophite author from whom he quotes without intermission throughout the chapter, seems to have got hold of a hymn to Attis used in the festivals of Cybele, in which Attis is, after the syncretistic fashion of post-Alexandrian paganism, identified with the Syrian Adonis, the Egyptian Osiris, the Greek Dionysos and Hermes, and the Samothracian or Cabiric gods Adamna and Corybas; and the chapter is in substance a commentary on this hymn, the order of the lines of which it follows closely. This commentary tries to explain or “interpret” the different myths there referred to by passages from the Old and New Testaments and from the Greek poets dragged in against their manifest sense and in the wildest fashion. Most of these supposed allusions, indeed, can only be justified by the most outrageous play upon words, and it may be truly said that not a single one of them when naturally construed bears the slightest reference to the matter in hand. Yet they serve not only to elucidate the Ophite beliefs, but give, as it were accidentally, much information as to the scenes enacted in the Eleusinian and other heathen mysteries which was before lacking. The author also quotes two hymns used apparently in the Ophite worship which are not only the sole relics of a once extensive literature, but are a great deal better evidence as to Gnostic tenets than his own loose and equivocal statements.

As the legend of Attis and Cybele may not be familiar to all, it may be well to give a brief abstract of it as found in Pausanias, Diodorus Siculus, Ovid, and the Christian writer Arnobius. Cybele, called also Agdistis, Rhea, Gê, or the Great Mother, was said to have been born from a rock accidentally fecundated by Zeus. On her first appearance she was hermaphrodite, but on the gods depriving her of her virility it passed into an almond-tree. The fruit of this was plucked by the virgin daughter of the river Sangarios, who, placing it in her bosom, became by it the mother of Attis, fairest of mankind. Attis at his birth was exposed on the river-bank, but was rescued, brought up as a goatherd, and was later chosen as a husband by the king’s daughter. At the marriage feast, Cybele, fired by jealousy, broke into the palace and, according to one version of the story, emasculated Attis who died of the hurt. Then Cybele repented and prayed to Zeus to restore him to life, which prayer was granted by making him a god. The ceremonies of the Megalesia celebrating the Death and Resurrection of Attis as held in Rome during the late Republic and early Empire, and their likeness to the Easter rites of the Christian Church are described in the _Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society for October 1917.]

[Footnote 2: (οὗ) χάριν, “thanks to which.”]

[Footnote 3: μετέχιο τὰς ἀφορμὰς, a phrase frequent in Plato.]

[Footnote 4: נָחָשׁ]

[Footnote 5: Cf. Rev. ii. 24.]

[Footnote 6: ἀρσενόθηλυς.]

[Footnote 7: Cruice thinks the name derived from the Adam Cadmon of the Jewish Cabala. But Adamas “the unsubdued” is an epithet of Hades who was equated with Dionysos, the analogue of Attis. Cf. Irenæus, I, 1.]

[Footnote 8: Salmon and Stähelin in maintaining their theory that Hippolytus’ documents were contemporary forgeries make the point that something like this hymn is repeated later in the account of Monoimus the Arabian’s heresy. The likeness is not very close. Cf. II, p. 107 _infra_.]

[Footnote 9: Origen (_cont. Celsum_, VI, 30) says the Ophites used to curse the name of Christ. Hence Origen cannot be the author of the _Philosophumena_.]

[Footnote 10: τὰ ὅλα. I am doubtful whether he is here using the word in its philosophic or Aristotelian sense as “entities necessarily differing from one another in kind,” or as “things of the universe.” On the whole the former construction seems here to be right.]

[Footnote 11: “That which has been sent”?]

[Footnote 12: Doubtless as being still confined in matter.]

[Footnote 13: Both Origen and Celsus knew of this Mariamne, after whom a sect is said to have been named. See Orig. _cont. Cels._, VI, 30.]

[Footnote 14: τῶν ἐθνῶν. The usual expression for Gentiles or Goyim.]

[Footnote 15: Isa. liii. 8.]

[Footnote 16: διάφορον. Miller reads ἀδιάφορον: “undistinguished.”]

[Footnote 17: This hymn is in metre and is said to be from a lost Pindaric ode. It has been restored by Bergk, the restoration being given in the notes to Cruice’s text, p. 142, and it was translated into English verse by the late Professor Conington. Cf. _Forerunners_, II, p. 54, n. 6.]

[Footnote 18: ἰχθυοφάγον. Doubtless a mistake for ἰχθυοφόρον. The Oannes of Berossus’ story wore a fish on his back.]

[Footnote 19: Adam the protoplast according to the Ophites (_Irenæus_, I, xviii, p. 197, Harvey) and Epiphanius (_Hær._ xxxvii, c. 4, p. 501, Oehler) was made by Jaldabaoth and his six sons. The same story was current among the followers of Saturninus (_Irenæus_, I, xviii, p. 197, Harvey) and other Gnostic sects, who agree with the text as to his helplessness when first created, and its cause.]

[Footnote 20: So in the Bruce Papyrus, “Jeû,” which name I have suggested is an abbreviation of Jehovah, is called “the great Man, King of the great Aeon of light.” See _Forerunners_, II, 193.]

[Footnote 21: Eph. iii. 15. Cf. the address of Jesus to His Father in the last document of the _Pistis Sophia_, _Forerunners_, II, p. 180, n. 4.]

[Footnote 22: Why is he to be punished? In the Manichæan story (for which see _Forerunners_, II, pp. 292 ff.) the First Man is taken prisoner by the powers of darkness. Both this and that in the text are doubtless survivals of some legend current throughout Western Asia at a very early date. Cf. Bousset’s _Hauptprobleme der Gnosis_, Leipzig, 1907, c. 4, _Der Urmensch_.]

[Footnote 23: So the cryptogram in the _Pistis Sophia_ professes to give “the word by which the Perfect Man is moved.” _Forerunners_, II, 188, n. 2.]

[Footnote 24: οὐσία: perhaps “essence” or “being.” It is the word for which _hypostasis_ was later substituted according to Hatch. See his _Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 269 ff.]

[Footnote 25: So Miller, Cruice, and Schneidewin. I should be inclined to read φάος, “light,” as in the Naassene hymn at the end of this chapter. No Gnostic sect can have taught that the soul came from Chaos.]

[Footnote 26: This, as always at this period, means “Syrians.” See Maury, _Rev. Archéol._, lviii, p. 242.]

[Footnote 27: ἔμψυχοι. He is punning on the likeness between this and ψυχή, “soul.”]

[Footnote 28: And between “nourished” and “reared.”]

[Footnote 29: τὸ τοιοῦτον. Not φύσις or ψυχή. At this point the author begins his commentary on the Hymn of the Mysteries of Cybele, for which see p. 141 _infra_.]

[Footnote 30: γένεσις, perhaps “birth.”]

[Footnote 31: An allusion to the myth which makes Aphrodite and Persephone share the company of Adonis between them.]

[Footnote 32: These words are added in the margin.]

[Footnote 33: A prominent feature in the imposture of Alexander of Abonoteichus. See Lucian’s _Pseudomantis_, _passim_.]

[Footnote 34: In the better-known story Attis castrates himself; but this version explains the allusion in the hymn on p. 141 _infra_.]

[Footnote 35: _i. e._ restores to her the virility of which they had deprived her when she was hermaphrodite. See n. on p. 119 _supra_.]

[Footnote 36: λελεγμένη. Miller and Schneidewin read δεδαιγμένη, “open,” or “displayed.”]

[Footnote 37: Gal. iii. 28. So Clemens Romanus, _Ep._ ii. 12; Clem. Alex. _Strom._, III, 13. Cf. _Pistis Sophia_, p. 378 (Copt).]

[Footnote 38: 2 Cor. v. 17; Gal. vi. 15.]

[Footnote 39: _i. e._ masculo-feminine. That Rhea, Cybele and Gê are but different names of the earth-goddess, see Maury, _Rèl. de la Grèce Antique_, I, 78 ff. For their androgyne character, see _J.R.A.S._ for Oct. 1917.]

[Footnote 40: Rom. i. 20 ff. The text omits several sentences to be found in the A.V.]

[Footnote 41: _Ibid._, v. 27.]

[Footnote 42: _Ibid._, v. 28.]

[Footnote 43: ἐπαγγελία τοῦ λουτροῦ, _pollicetur iis qui lavantur_, Cr. But “the font” is the regular patristic expression for the rite.]

[Footnote 44: The text has ἄλλῳ, “other,” which makes no sense. Cruice, following Schneidewin, alters it to ἀλάλῳ on the strength of p. 144 _infra_, and renders it _ineffabilis_; but ἀλάλος cannot mean anything but “dumb” or “silent.” That baptism in the early heretical sects was followed by a “chrism” or anointing, see _Forerunners_, II, 129, n. 2; _ibid._, 192.]

[Footnote 45: Luke xvii. 21.]

[Footnote 46: This does not appear in the severely expurgated fragments of the Gospel of Thomas which have come down to us. Epiphanius (_Hær._ xxxvii.) includes this gospel in a list of works especially favoured by the Ophites.]

[Footnote 47: λόγος, Cr. _disciplina_, Macmahon, “Logos.” But see Arnold, _Roman Stoicism_, p. 161.]

[Footnote 48: ὄργια. In Hippolytus it always has this meaning.]

[Footnote 49: Isis. See _Forerunners_, I, p. 34.]

[Footnote 50: ἡ μεταβλητὴ γένεσις. The expression is repeated in the account of Simon Magus’ heresy (II, p. 13 _infra_) and refers to the transmigration of souls.]

[Footnote 51: ἀνεξεικονίστος, “He of whom no image can be made.”]

[Footnote 52: Prov. xxiv. 16.]

[Footnote 53: Some qualification like “originally” or “at the beginning” seems wanting. Cf. Arnold, _op. cit._, n. on p. 58 _supra_.]

[Footnote 54: Matt. v. 45.]

[Footnote 55: He has apparently mistaken Min of Coptos or Nesi-Amsu for Osiris who is, I think, never represented thus. At Denderah, he is supine.]

[Footnote 56: The “terms” of Hermes which Alcibiades and his friends mutilated.]

[Footnote 57: δημιουργός. Here as always the “architect,” or he who creates not _ex nihilo_, but from existing material.]

[Footnote 58: For this name which is said by all the early heresiologists to mean “the God of the Jews,” see _Forerunners_, II, 46, n. 3. He is called a “fiery God” apparently from Deut. iv. 24, and a fourth number, either because in the Ophite theogony he comes next after the Supreme Triad of Father, Son, and Mother or, more probably, from his name covering the Tetragrammaton, or name of God in four letters.]

[Footnote 59: Ps. ii. 9.]

[Footnote 60: Cr. supplies “virtutem”; but the adjective is in the neuter.]

[Footnote 61: Eph. v. 14.]

[Footnote 62: κεχαρακτηρισμένος ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀχαρακτηρίστου Λόγου. These expressions repeated up to the end of the chapter are most difficult to render in English. The allusion is clearly to a coin stamped with the image of a king. Afterwards I translate ἀχαρακτηρίστος by “unportrayable,” for brevity’s sake.]

[Footnote 63: The famous words which tradition assigns to the Eleusinian Mysteries. One version is “Rain! conceive!” and probably refers to the fecundation or tillage of the earth. Cf. Plutarch, _de Is. et Os._, c. xxxiv.]

[Footnote 64: Rom. x. 18.]

[Footnote 65: Ps. cxviii. 22. Cf. Isa. xxviii. 16.]

[Footnote 66: See n. on p. 123 _supra_.]

[Footnote 67: Isa. xxviii. 16.]

[Footnote 68: Something is here omitted before ὀδόντες. Cf. _Iliad_, IV, 350.]

[Footnote 69: ἀρχανθρώπος, a curious expression meaning evidently First Man. It appears nowhere but in this chapter of the _Philosophumena_.]

[Footnote 70: Dan. ii. 45, “cut from the mountain without hands.”]

[Footnote 71: The Power called Adonæus or Adon-ai by the Ophites is also addressed as λήθη, “oblivion,” in the “defence” made to him by the ascending soul. See Origen, _cont Cels._ VI, c. 30 ff. or _Forerunners_, II, 72.]

[Footnote 72: A compound of _Iliad_, XIV, 201 and 246.]

[Footnote 73: Ps. lxxxii. 6; Luke vi. 35; John x. 34; Gal. iv. 26.]

[Footnote 74: John iii, 6.]

[Footnote 75: Joshua iii, 16.]

[Footnote 76: So the Cabbalists call one of their word-juggling processes _gematria_, which is said to be a corruption of γραμματεία.]

[Footnote 77: ἀρρήτως, _i. e._, “by implication,” or “not in words.”]

[Footnote 78: Play upon προφαίνω and προφήτης.]

[Footnote 79: Mariam was Moses’ aunt, Sephora his wife, and Jothor Sephora’s father, according to some fragments of Ezekiel quoted by Eusebius. So Cruice.]

[Footnote 80: Matt. xiii. 13.]

[Footnote 81: Isa. xxviii, 10. In A. V., “Precept upon precept; line upon line; here a little, there a little.” Irenæus (I, xix, 3, I, p. 201, Harvey) says, Caulacau is the name in which the Saviour descended according to Basilides, and the word seems to have been used in this sense by other Gnostic sects, See _Forerunners_, II, 94, n. 3.]

[Footnote 82: ἐκ γῆς ῥέοντα!]

[Footnote 83: A direct quotation from the Hymn of the Great Mysteries given later, p. 141 _infra_. Also a pun between κεράννυμι and κέρας.]

[Footnote 84: John 1. 34.]

[Footnote 85: Sophia, the third person of the Ophite Triad and Jaldabaoth her son.]

[Footnote 86: Something omitted after “cup.”]

[Footnote 87: τρία σάτα. A Jewish measure equivalent to 1½ _modius_. Cf. Matt. xiii. 33.]

[Footnote 88: The famous ὁμοούσιος.]

[Footnote 89: A compound of John vi. 53 and Mk. x. 38.]

[Footnote 90: Μαθητὰς, “disciples,” not apostles.]

[Footnote 91: The κατὰ may mean either “against” or “according to” nature.]

[Footnote 92: For this Corybas and his murder by his two brothers see Clem. Alex. _Protrept._, II. A pun here follows between Corybas and κορυφή, “head.”]

[Footnote 93: John v. 3.]

[Footnote 94: κεχαρακτηρισμένος.]

[Footnote 95: Ps. xxix. 3, 10.]

[Footnote 96: Ps. xxii. 20, A. V., “My darling from the power of the dog.”]

[Footnote 97: Isa. xci. 8; xliii. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 98: _Ibid._, xlix. 15; slightly altered.]

[Footnote 99: _Ibid._, xlix. 16.]

[Footnote 100: Ps. xxiv. 7. A. V. omits “rulers” or archons.]

[Footnote 101: Ps. xxiv. 8; xxii. 6.]

[Footnote 102: Job xl. 2.]

[Footnote 103: A pun like that on Geryon or Corybas.]

[Footnote 104: Gen. xxviii. 17.]

[Footnote 105: John x. 7, 9, “I am the door.”]

[Footnote 106: _i. e._ the worshippers of Cybele. For Attis’ name of Pappas, see Graillot, _Le Culte de Cybèle_, p. 15. It seems to mean “Father.”]

[Footnote 107: παῦε, παῦε!!!]

[Footnote 108: Eph. ii. 17.]

[Footnote 109: This was an Orphic doctrine. See _Forerunners_, I, 127, n. 1 for authorities.]

[Footnote 110: Matt. xxiii. 27.]

[Footnote 111: 1 Cor. xv. 52.]

[Footnote 112: 2 Cor. xii. 3, 4. A. V. omits “second heaven” and the sights seen.]

[Footnote 113: ψυχικὸς δὲ ἄνθρωπος. The “natural man” of the A. V.]

[Footnote 114: 1 Cor. ii. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 115: John vi. 44, “draw _him_ unto me.”]

[Footnote 116: Matt. vii. 21.]

[Footnote 117: Matt. xxi. 31, “Kingdom of God.”]

[Footnote 118: 1 Cor. x. 11. A pun on τέλη, “taxes,” and τέλη, “ends.”]

[Footnote 119: Cf. the Stoic doctrine of λόγοι σπερματικοί, Arnold, _Roman Stoicism_, p. 161.]

[Footnote 120: Lit., “brought to an end.”]

[Footnote 121: A condensation of Matt. xiii. 3-9.]

[Footnote 122: Deut. xxxi. 20.]

[Footnote 123: _i. e._ become united with the Godhead. The newly-baptized were given milk and honey. Cf. Hatch, _Hibbert Lectures_, above quoted, p. 300.]

[Footnote 124: Matt. iii. 10.]

[Footnote 125: This “third gate” is evidently baptism. For the reason see _Forerunners_, II, p. 73, n. 2.]

[Footnote 126: This seems to be a quotation from the Naassene author.]

[Footnote 127: Perhaps an allusion to the λόγοι σπερματικοί.]

[Footnote 128: Matt. vii. 6.]

[Footnote 129: The derivation to be tolerable should be *ἀειπόλος!]

[Footnote 130: _i. e._ Proteus.]

[Footnote 131: Gal. iv. 27.]

[Footnote 132: Jerem. xxxi. 15.]

[Footnote 133: The mistake in geography shows that Hippolytus was not a Jew.]

[Footnote 134: Jerem. xviii. 9.]

[Footnote 135: ἐποπτικὸν ... μυστήριον.]

[Footnote 136: This is in effect the first real information we have as to the final secret of the Eleusinian Mysteries.]

[Footnote 137: Hesychius also translates Brimos by ἰσχυρός.]

[Footnote 138: Hades or Pluto.]

[Footnote 139: Schleiermacher attributes this saying to Heraclitus.]

[Footnote 140: Meineke (_ap._ Cr.) attributes these lines to Parmenides.]

[Footnote 141: Cf. Justinus later, p. 175 _infra_.]

[Footnote 142: Schneidewin and Cruice both read λαβεῖν, “receive” (their vestures) for βαλεῖν.]

[Footnote 143: Cr. translates ἀπηρσενωμένους, _exuta virilitate_; but it seems to be a participle of ἀπαρρενόω = ἀπανδρόω. The idea that the Gnostic _pneumatics_ or spirituals would finally be united in marriage with the angels or λόγοι σπερματικοί was current in Gnosticism. See _Forerunners_, II, 110. The “virgin spirit” was probably that Barbelo whom Irenæus, I, 26, 1 f. (pp. 221 ff., Harvey), describes under that name as reverenced by the “Barbeliotae or Naassenes”; in any case, probably, some analogue of the earth-goddess, ever bringing forth and yet ever a virgin.]

[Footnote 144: Matt. vii. 13, 14. The A. V. has εἰσέρχομαι for διέρχομαι.]

[Footnote 145: See n. on p. 119 _supra_.]

[Footnote 146: _i. e._ Attis.]

[Footnote 147: ἀμύσσω is rather to “scratch,” or “scarify,” than as in the text.]

[Footnote 148: Cf. John iv. 21.]

[Footnote 149: Cruice’s restoration. Schneidewin’s would read: “The Spirit is there where also the Father is named, and the Son is there born from the Father.”]

[Footnote 150: Cf. Ezekiel x. 12.]

[Footnote 151: ῥῆμα, not λόγος.]

[Footnote 152: Here we see the interpretation put by Hippolytus an the Aristotelian τὰ ὅλα.]

[Footnote 153: θεμελιόω. The whole of this sentence singularly resembles that in the _Great Announcement_ ascribed to Simon Magus, for which see II, p. 12 _infra_.]

[Footnote 154: This idea of the Indivisible Point, which recurs in several Gnostic writings, including those of Simon and Basilides, seems founded on the mathematical axiom that the line and therefore all solid bodies spring from the point, which itself has “neither parts nor magnitude.”]

[Footnote 155: Ἐπινοίᾳ. This also is used by Simon as the equivalent of Ἔννοια.]

[Footnote 156: Ps. xix. 3.]

[Footnote 157: ἀπρονοήτως, Cr., _sine numine quidquam_; Macmahon, “without premeditation.”]

[Footnote 158: Performances in the theatres formed part of the Megalesia or Festival of the Great Mother.]

[Footnote 159: I should be inclined to read τῆς Μεγάλης μυστήρια, “Mysteries of the Great Mother.”]

[Footnote 160: An allusion to the variant of the Cybele legend which makes her the emasculator of Attis.]

[Footnote 161: So Conington, who translated the hymns into English verse, and Schneidewin. Hippolytus, however, evidently gave this invocation to the Greeks. See p. 132 _supra_.]

[Footnote 162: δ’ ὀφίαν, according to Schneidewin’s restoration (for which see p. 176 Cr.), seems better sense, if we can suppose that the Sabazian serpent was so called.]

[Footnote 163: The whole hymn with the next fragment is given as restored to metrical form where quoted in last note.]

[Footnote 164: That is of the _Galli_, or eunuch-priests of Attis and Cybele.]

[Footnote 165: Thales only said, so far as we know, that water was the beginning of all things.]

[Footnote 166: The cornucopia: horn of the goat (not bull) Amalthea seems to have been intended. I see no likeness between this and the passage in Deut. xxxiii. 17, to which Macmahon refers it.]

[Footnote 167: Gen. ii. 10.]

[Footnote 168: This and the three following quotations are from Gen. ii. 10-14 and follow the Septuagint version.]

[Footnote 169: Play upon Euphrates and εὐφραίνει, “rejoices.”]

[Footnote 170: χαρακτηρίζει. “Stamps” would be more correct, but singularly incongruous with water.]

[Footnote 171: John iv. 10. No substantial difference from A. V.]

[Footnote 172: οὐσίαι, but not in the theological sense.]

[Footnote 173: This simile, repeated often later, has been the chief support of Salmon and Stähelin’s forgery theory. Yet Clement of Alexandria (Book VII, c. 2, _Stromateis_) also uses it, and the turning of swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks appears in Micah iv. 3, as well as in Isaiah ii. 4, without arguing a common origin.]

[Footnote 174: John 1. 9.]

[Footnote 175: Isa. xl. 15.]

[Footnote 176: Play upon χριόμενοι, “anointed,” and χριστιανοί.]

[Footnote 177: 1 Sam. x. 1; xvi. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 178: The hymn which follows is so corrupt that Schneidewin declared it beyond hope of restoration. Miller shows that the original metre was anapæstic, the number of feet diminishing regularly from 6 to 4. He likens this to that of the hymns of Synesius and the _Tragopodagra_ of Lucian.]

[Footnote 179: Reading φάος for χάος.]

[Footnote 180: This seems to correspond with the Ophite description of Sophia or the third Person of their Triad in Chaos. Cf. Irenæus, I, 28.]

[Footnote 181: The source of this chapter on the Naassenes is so far undiscoverable. Contrary to his usual practice, Hippolytus here mentions the name of no heretical author as he does in the following chapters of this Book. It is probable, therefore, that he may have taken down his account of “Naassene” doctrines from the lips of some convert, which would account for the extreme wildness of the quotations and to the incoherence with which he jumps about from one subject to another. This would also account for the heresy here described being far more Christian in tone than the other forms of Ophitism which follow it in the text, and the quotations from Scripture, especially the N.T., being more numerous and on the whole more apposite than in the succeeding chapters. The style, such as it is, is maintained throughout and its continuity should perhaps forbid us to see in it a plurality of authors. Little prominence in it is given to the Serpent which gives its name to the sect, although it is here said that he is good, and this seems to point to the Naassene being more familiar with the Western than with the Eastern forms of Cybele-worship.]

[Footnote 182: No mention of this sect is made by Irenæus or Epiphanius, and Theodoret’s statements concerning it correspond so closely with those of our text as to make it certain either that they were drawn from it or that both he and Hippolytus drew from a common source. Yet Clement of Alexandria knew of the Peratics (see _Stromateis_ VII, 16), and Origen (_cont. Cels._ VI, 28) speaks of the Ophites generally as boasting Euphrates as their founder. The name given to them in our text is said by Clement (_ubi cit._) to be a place-name, and the better opinion seems to be that it means “Mede” or one who lives on the further side of the Euphrates. The main point of their doctrine seems to be the great prominence given in it to the Serpent, whom they call the Son, and make an intermediate power between the Father of All and Matter. In this they are perhaps following the lead of some of the Græco-Oriental worships like that of Sabazius, one of the many forms of Attis, or that of Dionysos whose symbol was the serpent. The proof of their doctrines, however, they sought for not, like the Naassenes, in the mystic rites, but in a kind of astral theology which looked for religious truths in the grouping of the stars; and it was in pursuit of this that they identified the Saviour Serpent with the constellation Draco. Yet they were ostensibly Christians, being apparently perfectly willing to accept the historical Christ as their great intermediary. Their attitude to Judaism is more difficult to grasp because, while they quoted freely from the Old Testament, they apparently considered its God as an evil, or at all events, an unnecessarily harsh, power, in which they anticipated Manes and probably Marcion. Had we more of their writings we should probably find in them the embodiment of a good deal of early Babylonian tradition, to which most of these astrological heresies paid great attention.]

[Footnote 183: πηγή.]

[Footnote 184: τὸ μὲν ἓν μέρος. Cruice thinks these words should be added here instead of in the description of the “great source” just above. See Book X, II, p. 481 _infra_.]

[Footnote 185: Probably “Great Father.”]

[Footnote 186: This is entirely contradictory of Hippolytus’ own statement later of their doctrine that the universe consists of Father, Son, and Matter. Αὐτογενής, for which αὐτογέννητος is substituted a page later, is the last epithet to be applied to a _son_. Is it a mistake for μονογέννητος, “only begotten?” For the three worlds, see the Naassene author also, p. 121 _supra_.]

[Footnote 187: The cause assigned a little later is the salvation of the _three_ worlds.]

[Footnote 188: τριδύναμος probably means with powers from all three worlds. The phrase is frequent in the _Pistis Sophia_.]

[Footnote 189: συγκρίματα, _concretiones_, Cr. and Macmahon. It might mean “decrees” and is used in the Septuagint version of Daniel for “interpretations” of dreams.]

[Footnote 190: Coloss. i. 19, and ii. 9.]

[Footnote 191: From the starry influences?]

[Footnote 192: John iii. 17.]

[Footnote 193: 1. Cor. xi. 32.]

[Footnote 194: But see n. 4 on last page and text three sentences earlier.]

[Footnote 195: It was not the world, but the Zodiac that the astrologers divided into dodecatemories. See Bouché-Leclercq, _L’Astrologie Gr._, _passim_.]

[Footnote 196: There must be some mistake here. The planetary world, according to the astronomy of the time, only began at the Moon.]

[Footnote 197: The words which follow, down to the end of this paragraph, with the exception of one sentence, are taken, not from the astrologers, but from the opponent Sextus Empiricus. They correspond to pp. 339 ff. of the Leipzig edition of Sextus and the restorations from this are shown by round brackets. The whole passage doubtless once formed the beginning of Book IV of our text, the opening words of which they repeat. For the probable cause of this needless repetition see the Introduction, p. 20 _supra_.]

[Footnote 198: Sextus’ comment, not Hippolytus’.]

[Footnote 199: The personal followers of Pythagoras were called Pythagorics, those who later gave a general assent to his doctrines Pythagoreans.]

[Footnote 200: An echo of a tradition which seems widespread in Asia. In the _Pistis Sophia_ it is said that half the signs of the Zodiac rebelled against the order to give up “the purity of their light” and joined the wicked Adamas, while the other half remained faithful under the rule of Jabraoth. Cf. Rev. xii. 7, and the Babylonian legend of the assault of the seven evil spirits on the Moon.]

[Footnote 201: “Toparch” = ruler of a place. Proastius, “suburban,” or a dweller in the environs of a town. It here probably means the ruler of a part of the heavens near or under the influence of a planet.]

[Footnote 202: The bombastic phrases which follow seem to have been much corrupted and to have been translated from some language other than Greek. Νυκτόχροος and ὑδατόχροος are not, I think, met with elsewhere, and the genders are much confused throughout the whole quotation, Poseidon being made a female deity and Isis a male one. The more outlandish names have some likeness to the “Munichuaphor,” “Chremaor,” etc., of the _Pistis Sophia_. There seems some logical connection between the name of the powers and those born under them, the lovers being assigned to Eros, and so on.]

[Footnote 203: Cruice points out that “eyes” are here probably written for “wells,” the Hebrew for both being the same, and refers us to the twelve wells of Elim in Exod. xv. 27.]

[Footnote 204: Schneidewin here quotes from Berossos the well-known passage about the woman Omoroca, Thalatth, or Thalassa, who presided over the chaos of waters and its monstrous inhabitants. See Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, p. 25. The name has been generally taken to cover that of Tiamat whom Bel-Merodach defeated. See Rogers, _Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 107.]

[Footnote 205: All Titans, like Kronos himself.]

[Footnote 206: Macmahon reads here Ino, but this name appears later.]

[Footnote 207: There is some confusion here. The Platonists, following Philolaos, attributed singular properties to the twelve-angled figure made out of pentagons and declared it to have been the model after which the Zodiac was made.]

[Footnote 208: νυκτόχροος. It seems to be a translation of the Latin _nocticolor_.]

[Footnote 209: So the Codex. Schneidewin and Cruice would read Κρόνος, but that name has already occurred.]

[Footnote 210: Here again Schneidewin would read ἀστέρος, “star”; but the next sentence makes it plain that it is the wind which is meant.]

[Footnote 211: Ariel is in one of the later documents of the _Pistis Sophia_ made one of the torturers in hell.]

[Footnote 212: Probably Saclan or Asaqlan whom the Manichæans made the Son of the King of Darkness and the husband of the Nebrod or Nebroe mentioned above.]

[Footnote 213: πρωτοκαμάρον. Macmahon translates it the “star Protocamarus,” for which I can see no authority. It seems to me to be an inversion of πρωτομακάρος, “first-best,” very likely to happen in turning a Semitic language into Greek and back again.]

[Footnote 214: The dogstar, Sothis, or Sirius, was identified with Isis.]

[Footnote 215: Μύγδων. In a magic spell, Pluto, who has many analogies with Attis, is saluted as “Huesemigadon,” perhaps “Hye, Cye, Mygdon.” Has this Mygdon any analogy with _amygdalon_ the almond?]

[Footnote 216: Qy. Mise, the hermaphrodite Dionysos?]

[Footnote 217: Βουμέγας, “great ox”? All the other names which follow are those of magicians or diviners.]

[Footnote 218: Two of the seven “angels of the presence.” Their appearance in a list mainly of Greek heroes is inexplicable.]

[Footnote 219: τῆς ἄνω. Perhaps we should insert δυνάμεως, “the Power on High.”]

[Footnote 220: See _Sibyll. Orac._, III. But the Sibyl says the exact opposite. Cf. Charles, _Apocrypha and Psuedepigrapha of the O.T._, II, 377.]

[Footnote 221: περᾶσαι. The derivation is too much even for Theodoret, who says that the name of the sect is taken from “Euphrates the Peratic” (or Mede).]

[Footnote 222: So modern astrologers make him the “greater malefic.”]

[Footnote 223: A fragment from Heraclitus according to Schleiermacher.]

[Footnote 224: So the _Pistis Sophia_ speaks repeatedly of “the Pleroma of all Pleromas.”]

[Footnote 225: Many magical books bore the name of Moses. See _Forerunners_, II, 46, and n.]

[Footnote 226: Is this why one Ophite sect was called the Cainites? The hostility here shown to the God of the Jews is common to many other sects such as that of Saturninus, of Marcion and later of Manes. Cf. _Forerunners_, II, under these names.]

[Footnote 227: Gen. x. 9. Nimrod, who is sometimes identified with the hero Gilgames, plays a large part in all this Eastern tradition.]

[Footnote 228: John iii. 13, 14.]

[Footnote 229: _Ibid._, i. 1-4.]

[Footnote 230: For this identification of Eve with the Mother of Life or Great Goddess of Asia, see _Forerunners_, II, 300, and n.]

[Footnote 231: ἄκραν. Cruice and Macmahon both read ἀρχή, “beginning,” but see ταύτην τὴν ἄκραν later.]

[Footnote 232: All this is, of course, quite different to the meaning assigned to these stars by the unnamed heretics of Book IV.]

[Footnote 233: If we could be sure that Hippolytus was here summarizing fairly Ophite doctrines, it would appear that the Ophites rejected the Platonic theory that matter was essentially evil. What is here said presents a curious likeness to Stoic doctrines of the universe, as of man’s being. Hippolytus, however, never quotes a Stoic author and seems throughout to ignore Stoicism save in Book I.]

[Footnote 234: πρόσωπον. The word used to denote the “character” or part or a person on the stage.]

[Footnote 235: ἰδέαι. So throughout this passage.]

[Footnote 236: Gen. xxx. 37 ff.]

[Footnote 237: χαρακτῆρες. See n. on p. 143 _supra_.]

[Footnote 238: Not “ring-straked” like Jacob’s sheep.]

[Footnote 239: ὁμοούσιος.]

[Footnote 240: Matt. vii. 11. Note the change of “Your” for “Our.”]

[Footnote 241: John viii. 44.]

[Footnote 242: Here again he dwells upon the supposed evil nature of the Demiurge.]

[Footnote 243: Or as Macmahon translates, “the substantial from the Unsubstantial one.”]

[Footnote 244: A lacuna in the text is thus filled by Cruice.]

[Footnote 245: Again this simile is not necessarily by the Peratic author, but seems to be introduced by Hippolytus. For the supposed conduct of naphtha in the presence of fire, see Plutarch, _vit Alex._]

[Footnote 246: ἐξεικονισμένον. A different metaphor from the “type.” We shall meet with this one frequently in the work attributed to Simon Magus.]

[Footnote 247: The text has ἐκ καμαρίου. Here Schneidewin agrees that the proper reading is μακαρίου, there being no reason why any “life-giving substance” should exist in the brain-pan. He thus confirms the reading in n. on p. 152 _supra_.]

[Footnote 248: This chapter on the Peratæ is evidently drawn from more sources than one. The author’s first statement of their doctrines, which occupies pp. 146-149 _supra_, represents probably his first impression of them and contains at least one glaring contradiction, duly noted in its place. Then comes a long extract from Sextus Empiricus which is to all appearance a repetition of the earliest part of Book IV, only pardonable if it be allowed that the present Book was delivered in lecture form. There follows a quotation longer and more sustained than any other in the whole work from a Peratic book which he says was called _Proastii_, with a bombastic prelude much resembling the language of Simon Magus’ _Great Announcement_ in Book VI, followed by a catalogue of starry “influences” which reads much as if it were taken from some astrological manual. There follows in its turn a dissertation on the Ophite Serpent showing how this object of their adoration, identified with the Brazen Serpent of Exodus, was made to prefigure or typify in the most incongruous manner many personages in the Old and New Testaments, including Christ Himself. After this he announces an “epitome” of the Peratic doctrine which turns out to be perfectly different from anything before said, divides the universe, which he has previously said the Peratics divided into unbegotten, self-begotten and begotten, into a new triad of Father, Son (_i. e._ Serpent), and Matter, and gives a fairly consistent statement of the Peratic scheme of salvation based on this hypothesis. One can only suppose here that this last is an afterthought added when revising the book and inspired by some fresh evidence of Peratic beliefs probably coloured by Stoic or Marcionite doctrine. In those parts of the chapter which appear to have been taken from genuinely Peratic sources, the reference to some Western Asiatic tradition concerning cosmogony and the protoplasts and differing considerably from the narrative of Genesis, is plainly apparent.]

[Footnote 249: This chapter is the most difficult of the whole book to account for, with the doubtful exception of the much later one on the Docetæ. A sect of Sethians is mentioned by Irenæus, who does not attempt to separate their doctrines from those of the Ophites. Pseudo-Tertullian in his tractate _Against All Heresies_ also connects with the Ophites a sect called Sethites or Sethoites, the main dogma he attributes to them being an attempt to identify Christ with the Seth of Genesis. Epiphanius follows this last author in this identification and calls them Sethians, but does not expressly connect them with the Ophites, makes them an Egyptian sect, and does not attribute to them serpent-worship. The sectaries of this chapter are called in the rubric Sithiani, altered to Sēthiani in the Summary of Book X, and the name is not necessarily connected with that of the Patriarch. In the Bruce Papyrus, a Power, good but subordinate to the Supreme God, is mentioned, called “the Sitheus,” which may possibly, by analogy with the late-Egyptian Si-Osiris and Si-Ammon, be construed “Son of God.” Of their doctrines little can be made from Hippolytus’ brief but confused description. Their division of the cosmos into three parts does not seem to differ much from that of the Peratæ, although they make a sharper distinction than this last between the world of light and that of darkness, which has led Salmon (_D.C.B._ s.v., Ophites) to conjecture for them a Zoroastrian origin. This is unlikely, and more attention is due to Hippolytus’ own statement that they derived their doctrines from Musæus, Linus, and Orpheus. In _Forerunners_ it is sought to show that the Orphic teaching was one of the foundations on which the fabric of Gnosticism was reared, and the image of the earth as a matrix was certainly familiar to the Greeks, who made Delphi its ὀμφαλός or navel. Hence the imagery of the text, offensive as it is to our ideas, would not have been so to them, and Epiphanius (_Hær._, XXXVIII, p. 510, Oehl.) knew of several writings, κατὰ τῆς Ὑστέρας, or the Womb, which he says the sister sect of Cainites called the maker of heaven and earth. In this case, we need not take the story in the text about the generation by the bad or good serpent as necessarily referring to the Incarnation. One of the scenes in the Mysteries of Attis-Sabazius, and perhaps of those of Eleusis also, seems to have shown the seduction by Zeus in serpent-form of his virgin daughter Persephone and the birth therefrom of the Saviour Dionysos who was but his father re-born. This story of the fecundation of the earth-goddess by a higher power in serpent shape seems to have been present in all the religions of Western Asia, and was therefore extremely likely to be caught hold of by an early form of Gnosticism. In no other respect does this so-called “Sethian” heresy seem to have anything in common with Christianity, and it may therefore represent a pre-Christian form of Ophitism. The serpent in it is, perhaps, neither bad nor good.]

[Footnote 250: τούτοις δοκεῖ, “it seems to them.”]

[Footnote 251: Cruice and Macmahon both translate this “into the same nature with the spirit.”]

[Footnote 252: This anxiety of the higher powers to redeem from matter darkness or chaos, the scintilla of their own being which has slipped into it, is the theme of all Gnosticism from the Ophites to the _Pistis Sophia_ and the Manichæan writings. See _Forerunners_, II, _passim_.]

[Footnote 253: Or “the substances brought up to the sealer.”]

[Footnote 254: ἰδέαι. And so throughout.]

[Footnote 255: Schneidewin, Cruice, and Macmahon would here and elsewhere read ὁ φαλλὸς. But see the next sentence about pregnancy.]

[Footnote 256: ἐξετύπωσεν, “struck off.”]

[Footnote 257: πρωτόγονος. The others were “unbegotten” like the highest world of the Peratæ and Naassenes.]

[Footnote 258: εἴδεσιν.]

[Footnote 259: Is this Ps. xxix. 3, 10 already quoted by the Naassene author? Cf. p. 133 _supra_.]

[Footnote 260: This idea of a divine son superior to his father is common to the whole Orphic cosmogony and leads to the dethroning of Uranus by Kronos, Kronos by Zeus and finally of Zeus by Dionysos. It is met with again in Basilides (see Book VII _infra_).]

[Footnote 261: A lacuna here which Cruice thus fills.]

[Footnote 262: This has not been previously described. Is the narrative of the Fall alluded to?]

[Footnote 263: Cruice and Macmahon would translate “any other than man’s.”]

[Footnote 264: Phil. ii. 7. The only quotation from the N.T. other than that from Matt. used by the Sethians, if it be not, as I believe it is, the interpolation of Hippolytus.]

[Footnote 265: ἀπελούσατο. Yet it may refer to baptism which preceded initiation in nearly all the secret rites of the Pagan gods. Cf. _Forerunners_, 1, c. 2.]

[Footnote 266: The whole of this paragraph reads like an interpolation, or rather as something which had got out of its place. The statement about the physicists is directly at variance with the opening of the next which attributes the Sethian teaching to the Orphics. The triads he quotes are all of three “good” powers and therefore would belong much more appropriately to the system of the Peratæ. The quotation from Deut. iv. 11, he attributes to several other heresiarchs.]

[Footnote 267: The codex has ὀμφαλός for ὁ φαλλὸς which is Schneidewin’s emendation. No book attributed to Orpheus called “Bacchica” has come down to us, but the Rape of Persephone was a favourite theme with Orphic poets. Cf. Abel’s _Orphica_, pp. 209-219.]

[Footnote 268: This is not improbable; but Hippolytus gives us no evidence that this is the case, as Plutarch, from whom he quotes, certainly did not connect the frescoes of Phlium in the Peloponnesus (not Attica as he says) with the Sethians, nor does the light in their story _desire_ the water.]

[Footnote 269: This too is a stock quotation which has already done duty for the Naassene author. Cf. p. 131 _supra_.]

[Footnote 270: So has this with the “Peratic.” Cf. p. 154 _supra_.]

[Footnote 271: κράσις ... μίξις.]

[Footnote 272: καταμεμῖχθαι λεπτῶς.]

[Footnote 273: τέχνη.]

[Footnote 274: Matt. x. 34.]

[Footnote 275: This again seems to be Hippolytus’ own repetition of a simile which he met with in the Naassene author and which so pleased him that he made use of it in his account of the Peratic heresy as well as here. Cf. pp. 144 and 159 _supra_.]

[Footnote 276: ἅλας πηγνύμενον.]

[Footnote 277: Herodotus VI, 20, mentions the City of Ampe, but says nothing there about the well which is described in c. 119 as at Ardericca in Cissia.]

[Footnote 278: The title of the book is given in the text as Παράφρασις Σήθ, which is a well-nigh impossible phrase.]

[Footnote 279: On the whole it may be said that this is the most suspect of all the chapters in the _Philosophumena_, and that, if ever Hippolytus was deceived into purchasing forged documents according to Salmon and Stähelin’s theory, one of them appears here. Much of it is mere verbiage as when, after having identified Mind or Nous with the fragrance of the spirit, he again explains that it is a ray of light sent from the perfect light, or when he explains the difference between the three different kinds of law. The quotations too are seldom new, nearly all of them appearing in other chapters and are, if it were possible, more than usually inapposite, while almost the only new one is inaccurate. The sentence about the Paraphrase (of) Seth, if that is the actual title of the book, does not suggest that Hippolytus is quoting from that work, nor does the phrase, “he says,” occur with anything like the frequency of its use in _e. g._, the Naassene chapter. On the whole, then, it seems probable that in this Hippolytus was not copying or extracting from any written document, but was writing down, to the best of his recollection the statements of some convert who professed to be able to reveal its teaching. It is significant in this respect that when the summary in Book X had to be made, the summarizer makes no attempt to abbreviate the statement of the supposed tenets of the Sethians, but merely copies out the part of the chapter in which they are described, entirely omitting the stories of the frescoed porch at Phlium and the oil-well at Ampa.]

[Footnote 280: Nothing is known of this Justinus, whose name is not mentioned by any other patristic writer, and there is no sure means of fixing his date. Macmahon, relying apparently on the last sentence of the chapter, would make him a predecessor of Simon Magus, and therefore contemporary with the Apostles’ first preaching. This is extremely unlikely, and Salmon on the other hand (_D.C.B._, s.v., “Justinus the Gnostic”) considers his heresy should be referred to “the latest stage of Gnosticism” which, if taken literally, would make it long posterior to Hippolytus. The source of his doctrine is equally obscure; for although Hippolytus classes him with the Ophites, the serpent in his system is certainly not good and plays as hostile a part towards man as the serpent of Genesis, while his supreme Triad of the Good Being, an intermediate power ignorant of the existence of his superior, and the Earth, differs in all essential respects from the Ophite Trinity of the First and Second Man and First Woman. Yet the names of the world-creating angels and devils here given, bear a singular likeness to those which Theodore bar Khôni in his _Book of Scholia_ attributes to the Ophites and also to those mentioned by Origen as appearing on the Ophite Diagram. On the other hand, there are many likenesses not only of ideas but of language between the system of Justinus and that of Marcion, who also taught the existence of a Supreme and Benevolent God and of a lower one, harsh, but just, who was the unwitting author of the evil which is in the world. This, indeed, leaves out of the account the third or female power; but an Armenian account of Marcion’s doctrines attributes to him belief in a female power also, called Hyle or Matter and the spouse of the Just God of the Law, with whom her relations are pretty much as described in the text. Justinus, however, was not like Marcion a believing Christian; for he makes his Saviour the son of Joseph and Mary and the mere mouthpiece of the subaltern angel Baruch, while his account of the Crucifixion differs materially from that of Marcion. The obscene stories he tells about the protoplasts also appear in much later Manichæan documents and seem to be drawn from the Babylonian tradition of which the loves of the angels in the Book of Enoch are probably also a survival. It is therefore not improbable that Justinus, the Book of Enoch, the Ophites, and perhaps Marcion, alike derived their tenets on these points from heathen myths of the marriage of Heaven and Earth, which may possibly be traced back to early Babylonian theories of cosmogony. Cf. _Forerunners_, II, cc. 8 and 11, _passim_.]

[Footnote 281: Hippolytus, like the Gnostic writers, seems to know of an oral as well as a written tradition from the Evangelists.]

[Footnote 282: Matt. x. 5. In the A.V. as here, τὰ ἔθνη, “the nations.”]

[Footnote 283: πρότερον διδάξας or “at first teaches.”]

[Footnote 284: ψυχαγωγίας χάριν. The reader must again be reminded that while the ψυχή of the Greeks was what we should call “mind,” the πνεῦμα is spirit, answering more to our word “soul.”]

[Footnote 285: παραμύθιον, a play upon μύθος.]

[Footnote 286: 1 Cor. ii. 9.]

[Footnote 287: Lit., “guarded the secrets of silence.”]

[Footnote 288: Ps. cx. 4.]

[Footnote 289: “The Blessed.”]

[Footnote 290: παραπλάσει, “given it another form.” As a fact, Justinus’ quotation from Herodotus is singularly accurate, save as afterwards noted.]

[Footnote 291: Herodotus, IV, 8-10.]

[Footnote 292: An island near Cadiz. The codex has Ἐρυθρᾶς, “the Red Sea.”]

[Footnote 293: In Herodotus it is mares and a chariot.]

[Footnote 294: μιξοπάρθενος. A neologism.]

[Footnote 295: In Herodotus the prophecy is given by the girl.]

[Footnote 296: To explain the origin of the Scythian nation.]

[Footnote 297: Or perhaps, as above, “the things of the universe.”]

[Footnote 298: Supplied from the summary in Book X. So the _Pistis Sophia_ has a Power never otherwise described but not benevolent who is called “the great unseen Forefather,” and seems to rule over material things.]

[Footnote 299: There is nothing to show that Hippolytus or Justinus knew this to be a plural.]

[Footnote 300: Seven names are missing from the text. Of the five given, Michael, Amen and Gabriel are given in the chapter on the Ophites in Theodore bar Khôni’s _Book of Scholia_ as the first angels created by God, the name of Baruch being replaced by that of “the great Yah.” “Esaddæus” is probably El Shaddai, who is said in the same book to be the angel sent to give the Law to the Jews and to have treacherously persuaded them to worship himself.]

[Footnote 301: Of these twelve names, Babel is written in bar Khôni as Babylon and said to be masculo-feminine, Achamoth is the Hebrew חכמת, Chochmah, Sophia, or Wisdom whom most Gnostics called the Mother of Life, Naas is the Serpent as is explained in the chapter on the Naassenes, Bel, Baal or the Chaldæan Bel, for Belias we should probably read Beliar, the devil of works like the _Ascensio Isaiae_, Kavithan should probably be Leviathan, Adonaios is the Hebrew Adonai, or the Lord, while Sael, Karkamenos and Lathen cannot be identified. Pharaoh and “Samiel,” a homonym of Satan, appear in bar Khôni’s list of angels who rule one or other of the ten heavens, and Adonaios and Leviathan in the Ophite Diagram described by Celsus. Cf. _Forerunners_, II, pp. 70 ff.]

[Footnote 302: Gen. ii. 8.]

[Footnote 303: So a Chinese Manichæan treatise lately discovered (see _Forerunners_, II, p. 352) speaks of demons inhabiting the soul as “trees.”]

[Footnote 304: ξύλον τοῦ εἰδέναι γνῶσιν κ.τ.λ., “the Tree _of seeing_ Knowledge,” etc.]

[Footnote 305: The context shows that it is the unity, etc., of Elohim and Edem that is referred to.]

[Footnote 306: Cf. n. on p. 177 _supra_.]

[Footnote 307: Gen. i. 28.]

[Footnote 308: Macmahon, “viceregal”; but the “satrap” shows from which country the story comes.]

[Footnote 309: Thus the Armenian version of Marcion’s theology (for which see _Forerunners_, II, p. 217, n. 2) makes the “God of the Law’s” withdrawal from Hyle or Matter, and his retirement to a higher heaven, the cause of all man’s woes.]

[Footnote 310: Cf. Ps. cxvii. 19, 20; but the likeness is not exact.]

[Footnote 311: Ps. cx. 1.]

[Footnote 312: Lit., “until she wishes it not.”]

[Footnote 313: “Serpent.” See n. on p. 173 _supra_.]

[Footnote 314: Gen. ii. 16, 17.]

[Footnote 315: That these stories about the protoplasts endured into Manichæan times, see M. Cumont’s _La Cosmogonie Manichéenne_, Appendix I.]

[Footnote 316: Here again a power is referred to by its number instead of its name, as with the Naassene author.]

[Footnote 317: Gal. v. 17.]

[Footnote 318: τὴν πλάσιν τὴν πονηράν, _malam fictionem_, Cr. Yet we have been told nothing of any deceit by Edem towards her partner.]

[Footnote 319: The Ophite Diagram, and bar Khôni’s authority both figure the powers hostile to man as taking the shapes of these animals.]

[Footnote 320: So one of the latest documents of the _Pistis Sophia_ calls the planet Aphrodite by a _place_-name, which in that case is Bubastis.]

[Footnote 321: προφητεία.]

[Footnote 322: If these words are to be taken literally, Justinus was the only heretic of early date who denied His divinity, and this would distinguish him finally from Marcion. But the words are not inconsistent with the Adoptionist view.]

[Footnote 323: These words are Miller’s suggestion.]

[Footnote 324: John xix. 26.]

[Footnote 325: παραθέμενος. So Luke xxiii. 46.]

[Footnote 326: ἐπριοποίησε. The derivation is absurd and the word if it had any meaning would be something like “made like a saw.” προποιέω would make the pun at which he seems to have been striving.]

[Footnote 327: This was not the case, the statues of Priapus being placed in gardens. The whole passage seems to have been interpolated by some one ignorant of Greek and of Greek customs or mythology.]

[Footnote 328: Isa. i. 2.]

[Footnote 329: τελεῖσθας or “initiated.” In any case a mystical word.]

[Footnote 330: Lit., “washed”; but the context shows that it is baptism which is in question. It played an important part not only in all these heretical sects but in heathen “mysteries” like those of Isis and Mithras.]

[Footnote 331: Hosea i. 2. The A.V. has “_departing_ from the Lord.” Here we have Edem clearly identified with the Earth goddess which is the key to the whole of Justinus’ story.]

[Footnote 332: ταῖς ἑξῆς ... τὰς τῶν ἀκολούθων αἱρέσεων. Macmahon, following Cruice, translates as above. It may well be, however, that the “heresies which follow” only mean which follow in the book.]

[Footnote 333: There is no reason to doubt Hippolytus’ assertion that this chapter is compiled from a book called _Baruch_ in which Justinus set forth his own doctrines. The narrative therein is, unlike that of the earlier chapters, perfectly coherent and plain, and the author’s use of the historical present gives it a dramatic form which is lacking from the _oratio obliqua_ formerly employed. Solecisms like the omission of the article are also rare, and the very long sentences in which Hippolytus seems to have delighted do not appear except in those passages where he is speaking in his own person. Whether from this or from some other cause, moreover, the transcription of it seems to have given less difficulty to the scribe Michael than some of the other chapters, and there is therefore far less need to constantly restore the text as in the case of the quotations from Sextus Empiricus. On the whole, therefore, we may assume that, as we have it, it is a genuine summary of Justinus’ doctrines taken from a work by his own hand.]

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FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 1: It is proposed to publish these texts first by way of experiment. If the Series should so far prove successful the others will follow. Nos. 1, 5 and 6 are now ready.]

Transcriber's Notes

The notes in the left and right margins, indicating page numbers in the original Greek, have been converted to e.g. [Sidenote: p.216] in this version. Obvious typographical errors and variable spelling were corrected. The following corrections have been made to the text:

Page Original New ------------------------------------------- 5 leben Leben 12 recemmet récemment 25 δοκείν δοκεῖν 33 ἅ ἃ 45 αὐτῆ αὐτῇ 45 έξατμισθέντα ἐξατμισθέντα 45 πυκνωθὲντα πυκνωθέντα 45 κοὶλῳ κοίλῳ 57 σολλογιστικώτερον συλλογιστικώτερον 62 δασσαντο δάσσαντο 63 Λἰθήρ Αἰθήρ 63 καἰ καὶ 66 δἰ δι’ 68 Mathescos Matheseos 69 δορυφορεἶσθαι δορυφορεῖσθαι 69 σομπάσχει συμπάσχει 71 sabacta subacta 72 ν ἐν 73 μερἰζεσθαί μερίζεσθαι 75 οί οἱ 80 Ideés Idées 80 σομφωνίᾳ συμφωνίᾳ 82 guess-work guesswork 83 Scientarum Scientiarum 85 ἀπαρτίσῄ ἀπαρτίσῃ 87 ἀγωνίξωνται ἀγωνίζωνται 92 Kapital Capitel 98 σκολόπενδριον σκολόπενδρον 98 ἀμορρύτων αὐτορρύτων 99 after-thought afterthought 103 windpipe wind-pipe 106 ἀπερίξυγον ἀπερίζυγον 109 ’εν ἐν 110 Manichéisine Manichéisme 111 positon position 113 Ιασίδαο Ἰασίδαο 113 ’ιδέας ἰδέας 120 Stähelein Stähelin 120 ἀφορμας ἀφορμὰς 125 Ibia Ibid 125 Ge Gê 128 theogomy theogony 133 Μαθητἁς Μαθητὰς 143 χαρακτηρίξει χαρακτηρίζει 147 begotten. begotten? 147 ἕν ἓν 152 Dogstar Dog-star 153 Midheaven Mid-heaven 163 ἐξετύπωσευ ἐξετύπωσεν 166 Musaeus Musæus 170 τά τὰ 180 ἑξης ἑξῆς 180 τάς τὰς 180 ἀκουλούθων ἀκολούθων 180 αἱρεσεων αἱρέσεων