[276] ἅλας πηγνύμενον.

[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.

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

[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.

[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.

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

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

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

[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.”

[285] παραμύθιον, a play upon μύθος.

[286] 1 Cor. ii. 9.

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

[288] Ps. cx. 4.

[289] “The Blessed.”

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

[291] Herodotus, IV, 8-10.

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

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

[294] μιξοπάρθενος. A neologism.

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

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

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

[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.

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

[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.

[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.

[302] Gen. ii. 8.

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

[304] ξύλον τοῦ εἰδέναι γνῶσιν κ.τ.λ., “the Tree of seeing Knowledge,” etc.

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

[306] Cf. n. on p. 177 supra.

[307] Gen. i. 28.

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

[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.

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

[311] Ps. cx. 1.

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

[313] “Serpent.” See n. on p. 173 supra.

[314] Gen. ii. 16, 17.

[315] That these stories about the protoplasts endured into Manichæan times, see M. Cumont’s La Cosmogonie Manichéenne, Appendix I.

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

[317] Gal. v. 17.

[318] τὴν πλάσιν τὴν πονηράν, malam fictionem, Cr. Yet we have been told nothing of any deceit by Edem towards her partner.

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

[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.

[321] προφητεία.

[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.

[323] These words are Miller’s suggestion.

[324] John xix. 26.

[325] παραθέμενος. So Luke xxiii. 46.

[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.

[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.

[328] Isa. i. 2.

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.