[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.
[2] (οὗ) χάριν, “thanks to which.”
[3] μετέχιο τὰς ἀφορμὰς, a phrase frequent in Plato.
[4] נָחָשׁ
[5] Cf. Rev. ii. 24.
[6] ἀρσενόθηλυς.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[11] “That which has been sent”?
[12] Doubtless as being still confined in matter.
[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.
[14] τῶν ἐθνῶν. The usual expression for Gentiles or Goyim.
[15] Isa. liii. 8.
[16] διάφορον. Miller reads ἀδιάφορον: “undistinguished.”
[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.
[18] ἰχθυοφάγον. Doubtless a mistake for ἰχθυοφόρον. The Oannes of Berossus’ story wore a fish on his back.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[26] This, as always at this period, means “Syrians.” See Maury, Rev. Archéol., lviii, p. 242.
[27] ἔμψυχοι. He is punning on the likeness between this and ψυχή, “soul.”
[28] And between “nourished” and “reared.”
[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.
[30] γένεσις, perhaps “birth.”
[31] An allusion to the myth which makes Aphrodite and Persephone share the company of Adonis between them.
[32] These words are added in the margin.
[33] A prominent feature in the imposture of Alexander of Abonoteichus. See Lucian’s Pseudomantis, passim.
[34] In the better-known story Attis castrates himself; but this version explains the allusion in the hymn on p. 141 infra.
[35] i. e. restores to her the virility of which they had deprived her when she was hermaphrodite. See n. on p. 119 supra.
[36] λελεγμένη. Miller and Schneidewin read δεδαιγμένη, “open,” or “displayed.”
[37] Gal. iii. 28. So Clemens Romanus, Ep. ii. 12; Clem. Alex. Strom., III, 13. Cf. Pistis Sophia, p. 378 (Copt).
[38] 2 Cor. v. 17; Gal. vi. 15.
[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.
[40] Rom. i. 20 ff. The text omits several sentences to be found in the A.V.
[41] Ibid., v. 27.
[42] Ibid., v. 28.
[43] ἐπαγγελία τοῦ λουτροῦ, pollicetur iis qui lavantur, Cr. But “the font” is the regular patristic expression for the rite.
[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.
[45] Luke xvii. 21.
[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.
[47] λόγος, Cr. disciplina, Macmahon, “Logos.” But see Arnold, Roman Stoicism, p. 161.
[48] ὄργια. In Hippolytus it always has this meaning.
[49] Isis. See Forerunners, I, p. 34.
[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.
[51] ἀνεξεικονίστος, “He of whom no image can be made.”
[52] Prov. xxiv. 16.
[53] Some qualification like “originally” or “at the beginning” seems wanting. Cf. Arnold, op. cit., n. on p. 58 supra.
[54] Matt. v. 45.
[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.
[56] The “terms” of Hermes which Alcibiades and his friends mutilated.
[57] δημιουργός. Here as always the “architect,” or he who creates not ex nihilo, but from existing material.
[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.
[59] Ps. ii. 9.
[60] Cr. supplies “virtutem”; but the adjective is in the neuter.
[61] Eph. v. 14.
[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.
[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.
[64] Rom. x. 18.
[65] Ps. cxviii. 22. Cf. Isa. xxviii. 16.
[66] See n. on p. 123 supra.
[67] Isa. xxviii. 16.
[68] Something is here omitted before ὀδόντες. Cf. Iliad, IV, 350.
[69] ἀρχανθρώπος, a curious expression meaning evidently First Man. It appears nowhere but in this chapter of the Philosophumena.
[70] Dan. ii. 45, “cut from the mountain without hands.”
[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.
[72] A compound of Iliad, XIV, 201 and 246.
[73] Ps. lxxxii. 6; Luke vi. 35; John x. 34; Gal. iv. 26.
[74] John iii, 6.
[75] Joshua iii, 16.
[76] So the Cabbalists call one of their word-juggling processes gematria, which is said to be a corruption of γραμματεία.
[77] ἀρρήτως, i. e., “by implication,” or “not in words.”
[78] Play upon προφαίνω and προφήτης.
[79] Mariam was Moses’ aunt, Sephora his wife, and Jothor Sephora’s father, according to some fragments of Ezekiel quoted by Eusebius. So Cruice.
[80] Matt. xiii. 13.
[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.
[82] ἐκ γῆς ῥέοντα!
[83] A direct quotation from the Hymn of the Great Mysteries given later, p. 141 infra. Also a pun between κεράννυμι and κέρας.
[84] John 1. 34.
[85] Sophia, the third person of the Ophite Triad and Jaldabaoth her son.
[86] Something omitted after “cup.”
[87] τρία σάτα. A Jewish measure equivalent to 1½ modius. Cf. Matt. xiii. 33.
[88] The famous ὁμοούσιος.
[89] A compound of John vi. 53 and Mk. x. 38.
[90] Μαθητὰς, “disciples,” not apostles.
[91] The κατὰ may mean either “against” or “according to” nature.
[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.”
[93] John v. 3.
[94] κεχαρακτηρισμένος.
[95] Ps. xxix. 3, 10.
[96] Ps. xxii. 20, A. V., “My darling from the power of the dog.”
[97] Isa. xci. 8; xliii. 1, 2.
[98] Ibid., xlix. 15; slightly altered.
[99] Ibid., xlix. 16.
[100] Ps. xxiv. 7. A. V. omits “rulers” or archons.
[101] Ps. xxiv. 8; xxii. 6.
[102] Job xl. 2.
[103] A pun like that on Geryon or Corybas.
[104] Gen. xxviii. 17.
[105] John x. 7, 9, “I am the door.”
[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.”
[107] παῦε, παῦε!!!
[108] Eph. ii. 17.
[109] This was an Orphic doctrine. See Forerunners, I, 127, n. 1 for authorities.
[110] Matt. xxiii. 27.
[111] 1 Cor. xv. 52.
[112] 2 Cor. xii. 3, 4. A. V. omits “second heaven” and the sights seen.
[113] ψυχικὸς δὲ ἄνθρωπος. The “natural man” of the A. V.
[114] 1 Cor. ii. 13, 14.
[115] John vi. 44, “draw him unto me.”
[116] Matt. vii. 21.
[117] Matt. xxi. 31, “Kingdom of God.”
[118] 1 Cor. x. 11. A pun on τέλη, “taxes,” and τέλη, “ends.”
[119] Cf. the Stoic doctrine of λόγοι σπερματικοί, Arnold, Roman Stoicism, p. 161.
[120] Lit., “brought to an end.”
[121] A condensation of Matt. xiii. 3-9.
[122] Deut. xxxi. 20.
[123] i. e. become united with the Godhead. The newly-baptized were given milk and honey. Cf. Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, above quoted, p. 300.
[124] Matt. iii. 10.
[125] This “third gate” is evidently baptism. For the reason see Forerunners, II, p. 73, n. 2.
[126] This seems to be a quotation from the Naassene author.
[127] Perhaps an allusion to the λόγοι σπερματικοί.
[128] Matt. vii. 6.
[129] The derivation to be tolerable should be *ἀειπόλος!
[130] i. e. Proteus.
[131] Gal. iv. 27.
[132] Jerem. xxxi. 15.
[133] The mistake in geography shows that Hippolytus was not a Jew.
[134] Jerem. xviii. 9.
[135] ἐποπτικὸν ... μυστήριον.
[136] This is in effect the first real information we have as to the final secret of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
[137] Hesychius also translates Brimos by ἰσχυρός.
[138] Hades or Pluto.
[139] Schleiermacher attributes this saying to Heraclitus.
[140] Meineke (ap. Cr.) attributes these lines to Parmenides.
[142] Schneidewin and Cruice both read λαβεῖν, “receive” (their vestures) for βαλεῖν.
[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.
[144] Matt. vii. 13, 14. The A. V. has εἰσέρχομαι for διέρχομαι.
[146] i. e. Attis.
[147] ἀμύσσω is rather to “scratch,” or “scarify,” than as in the text.
[148] Cf. John iv. 21.
[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.”