[2] ὄρος, “hill”; possibly a copyist’s error for ὅρος, “boundary” or “shore.”
[3] This exordium was evidently intended to be spoken.
[4] οὐσία, Cruice and others translate this by “substance.” Here it evidently means “essence” in the sense of “being.”
[5] εἶδος, i. e. appearance = that which is seen.
[6] ἄτομος, “which cannot be cut or divided,” = “atom.”
[7] ἀναδέξασθαι τομήν, “receive cutting.”
[8] ζῷον ἁπλῶς. See Aristotle, Categor., c. 3. The “living creature” of the A. V. would here make better sense; but I keep the word “animal” in the text out of respect for my predecessors.
[9] ὑπόστασις, literally substantia, with no meaning as has οὐσία of “being.” See Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, p. 275.
[10] ἀνείδεον, “abstract,” or “non-specific”?
[11] εἴδεσιν.
[12] The text has ταύτην .... [τὴν οὐσίαν], the words in brackets being rightly deleted, as Cruice notes.
[13] ἐθέμεθα, “posited.”
[14] εἰς εἶδος οὐσίας ὑποστατικῆς, which shows the distinction made by the author between ὀυσία and ὑπόστασις.
[15] ἄτομον, “undivided.”
[16] The text is here corrupt and has to be restored from Aristotle’s, the word I have translated “essence” being as before οὐσία while subject is ὑποκειμένον. Cf. Aristotle Cat., c. 5, and Metaphysica, IV, c. 8.
[17] Or “of many animals although they differ in species.”
[18] ἔμψυχος, “animated” or “ensouled.”
[20] i. e. “inherent.”
[21] τὰ ἄτομα.
[22] συμπληροῦται.
[23] οὐσία, which here as elsewhere in the text may be translated “essence.” “Being,” perhaps, is better here as more familiar to the English reader.
[24] These definitions of “accident” and the like are not to be found in the Categories of Aristotle as we have them in the work known as the Organon, nor in any other of his extant works. But they correspond with those given in Book VI, and are there attributed to Pythagoras. Cf. p. 21 supra.
[25] οὐσία throughout.
[26] That is, makes fables or myths about the gods.
[27] Macmahon remarks that these must be among Aristotle’s lost works. This is doubtful.
[29] Basilides and his son must therefore have been contemporaries of the Apostles. Even if we treat the word αὐτοῖς here as a copyist’s interpolation, it is evident that Basilides must have been considerably anterior in time to Valentinus.
[30] πραγμάτων, “transactions.”
[31] The words in this sentence in square brackets are emendations in the text made by different editors.
[32] πραγμάτων, as in last note but one.
[33] κατὰ πλάτος καὶ διαίρεσιν.
[34] Basilides is thus the first Gnostic to teach the doctrine of creation e nihilo.
[36] πανσπερμίαν. The word is found in the fragments of Anaxagoras and Democritus as well as in Plato. Its use has been revived by Darwin and Weissmann.
[37] ἰδέας.
[38] οὐσιῶν. Nothing is here got by translating the word “substances.”
[39] πολυούσιον. Galen uses it as equivalent to “very wealthy.”
[40] ὁποῖον. As in Aristotle, Cate., c. 5.
[41] This with Hippolytus’ interpolated remark emphasizes the great difference between Basilides’ doctrine with its assertion of the creation e nihilo and the emanation theory of all other Gnostics. It does away with the necessity for a pre-existent matter.
[42] Gen. 1. 3.
[43] John 1. 9. This and “Mine hour is not yet come” are the only undoubted references to the Fourth Gospel made by Basilides.
[44] ἀρχάς.
[45] ὁμοούσιος. The first occurrence, so far as it can be traced, of this too-famous word. If I am right, the interpretation of οὐσία by “substance” came later. The nature of the Sonhood (Υἱότης, Lat., filietas, which I translate “Sonhood” by analogy with paternitas = Fatherhood) is peculiar to Basilides, the idea being apparently that within the Panspermia was concealed a germ which was more closely related to its Divine Parent than the rest. The same idea mutatis mutandis reappears in Weissmann’s theory of the germ-plasm.
[46] Homer, Odyssey, VII, 36.
[47] δι’ ὑπερβολὴν κάλλους καὶ ὡραιότητος. The longing of all nature for something higher is also mentioned in the Book on the Ophites (See Book V, Vol. I, pp. 123, 140 supra). The phrase was evidently a favourite one with Hippolytus, and he therefore uses it in regard to several heresies, as he has done with the magnet simile.
[48] μιμητική τις οὖσα, “being an imitative thing.”
[49] Plato, Phaedrus, cc. 55, 56.
[50] ὁμοούσιον.
[51] χαρακτηρισθῆναι.
[52] Ps. cxxxiii. 2.
[53] ἀμορφίας καὶ τοῦ διαστήματος τοῦ καθ’ ἡμᾶς. The ἀμορφία corresponds exactly to the Chaos of the other Gnostics, as contrasted with the Cosmos or ordered world which in this case is above it. In it, as we see later (p. 356 Cr.) there is neither “leader nor guardian nor demiurge,” and everything happens by predestination. The διάστημα we have already met with in the teaching of Simon Magus (p. 261 Cr.). Although in classical Greek it means an “interval,” it is here evidently intended to signify something uncultivated, or, as we should say, a “waste.”
[54] It gives benefit by passing into the souls of certain chosen men and thus enabling them to obtain the highest beatitude. It receives it by thus purifying itself and so working out in turn its own salvation.
[55] He evidently regards the three persons of the Sonhood as one being.
[56] “Cosmos.”
[57] Τὸ Μεθόριον Πνεῦμα.
[58] The likeness of this to the Egyptian Horus who was at once the sky-god and the ruler of the sublunary world, whose earthly representative was the Pharaoh, is manifest. So, too, is its connection with Horos, the Limit, of the Pleroma in Book VI.
[59] So in the Pistis Sophia the great ruler of the material world is only spoken of as the Great Propatôr or Forefather, but his personal name is never mentioned. The word Ἄρχων here applied to this power is never used by later Gnostics except in a bad sense.
[60] δεσπότης = autocrat or ruler having unlimited power.
[61] καθ’ ἕκαστα.
[62] This idea of a Power bringing into being a son greater than himself seems peculiar to Basilides among Gnostic teachers. Its origin may, perhaps, be sought among Pagan religions like the Greek worship of Isis. See Forerunners, I, p. 63.
[63] This ἐντελεχεία or Quintessence Aristotle defines (Metaphys., X, 9, 2) as actuality or the property of a thing in posse which lends to its motion or activity in esse.
[64] ἀποτέλεσμα. The word is much used in astrology.
[65] μεγαλειότητος. The word is post-classical and used in its modern sense as an epithet of the Emperor in Byzantine times. Cf. LXX, Jer. xxxiii. 9; Luke ix. 43; Acts xix. 27.
[66] ῥητός as opposed to ἄρῥητος, “ineffable.”
[67] That is to say, our world.
[68] ὡς φθάσαντα τεχθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ τὰ μέλλοντα γενέσθαι ὁτε δεῖ καὶ οἷα δεῖ καὶ ὡς δεῖ λελογισμένου. The reading is very uncertain. Cf. Cruice, p. 356 nn. 9, 10.
[69] Rom. viii. 22.
[70] Rom. v. 13, 14. In the Greek not ἁμαρτία as in the text, but θάνατος, “death.”
[71] Cf. Exod. vi. 2, 3. Basilides has twisted the last sentence, “By my name Jehovah was I not known to them,” as Hippolytus notes.
[72] ἐκεῖθεν, i. e. from the Hebdomad. Cruice will have it from the Ogdoad, but is clearly wrong.
[73] Ἀρχή, “Rule.” Cf. Milton’s “Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers.”
[74] The simile of the vapour of naphtha rising and catching fire from a light above it is apt. As Prof. A. S. Peake points out in his article on “Basilides” in Hastings’ Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, Basilides throughout his system asserts in opposition to Gnostics like Valentinus that salvation comes from the uplifting of the lower powers rather than by the degradation of the higher.
[75] There are many conjectural readings of this passage, for which see Cruice.
[76] Prov. i. 7. So Clem. Alex. (Strom., II, 8, 36), who clearly quotes this passage from Basilides.
[77] κατασκευή. Cf. LXX, Gen. i. 1.
[78] ἀποκατασταθήσεται. This Apocatastasis, or return of the worlds to the Deity from whom they came forth, is a favourite source of speculation with all Gnostics.
[79] 1 Cor. ii. 13.
[80] A conflation of Ps. xxxii. 5, and Ps. li. 3.
[81] εὐαγγελισθήσεται, “have the good news announced to him”?
[82] It is the words in brackets which connect the system of the text with that attributed to Basilides by Irenæus and Epiphanius. Cf. Iren., I, xxiv. 5, pp. 202, 203, and n. 6, H., and Epiph., Haer., XXIV.
[83] Eph. iii. 3, 5.
[84] 2 Cor. xii. 4.
[85] As at the Baptism in Jordan where, according to the almost universal tradition, the water was lighted up.
[86] Luke i. 35.
[87] δύναμις τῆς χρίσεως. Thus in Cruice. Miller would read κρίσεως, and Roeper Ὀγδοάδος. Perhaps the correct reading is χριστός, according to the idea common to nearly all Gnostics that the Christos only came upon Jesus at His Baptism.
[88] ἐγένετο ἄν.
[89] John iffi. 5.
[90] ὑπὸ γένεσιν, “configuration” or “geniture.” The proper word for a theme or horoscope.
[91] It was the Second and not the First Sonhood who left the Holy Spirit at the Boundary.
[92] It is plain from this that Basilides taught that the most spiritual part of man’s soul was part of the Sonhood and that it was separated from the rest at death. This is confirmed by what is said later about what happened after the Passion.
[93] Εὐαγγέλιον = “good news”? The article is omitted in both these sentences.
[94] He of the Ogdoad.
[95] ἠγαλλιάσατο, a kind of pun on Ἐὐαγγέλιον, “glad tidings.”
[96] ἵνα ἀπαρχὴ τῆς φυλοκρινήσεως γένηται τῶν συγκεχυμένων. So Clem. Alex. (Strom., II., 8, 36), quoting from the “followers of Basilides,” says that the Great Ruler’s fear became the ἀρχὴ τῆς σοφίας φυλοκρινητικῆς, “the origin of the wisdom which discriminates.”
[97] σωματικὸν μέρος.
[98] This flatly contradicts the story attributed to Basilides by Irenæus to the effect that Simon of Cyrene took His place on the Cross. It has long been thought likely that Irenæus was here confusing Basilides with his contemporary Saturninus.
[99] So in the Pistis Sophia, the incorporeal part of man is said to consist of four parts.
[100] ὑπόθεσις.
[101] καὶ τὸ πάθος οὐκ ἄλλου τινὸς χάριν γέγονεν [ἢ] ὑπὲρ τοῦ φυλοκρινηθῆναι τὰ συγκεχυμένα.
[102] As has been said, there appears no reason to doubt that Hippolytus took his account of Basilides’ doctrines directly from the works of that heresiarch or of his son Isidore. The likeness of the quotations from Basilides or “those about Basilides” in Clement of Alexandria—a far more accurate and critical writer than Hippolytus—to our text leave no doubt on this point, and it is even probable that, as Hort thought, most of Hippolytus’ information is gathered from Basilides’ Exegetica. His account of the universe and its creation is largely Stoic, as may be seen by a comparison of this chapter with that on the Universe in Prof. E. V. Arnold’s excellent Roman Stoicism (Cambridge, 1911); but he differs from all the Pagan philosophy of his time by his view of matter which he makes neither pre-existent nor malignant. In this, and in the “happy ending” to his drama of the universe, we may perhaps see the result of the Golden Age of the Antonines, and it is to this, perhaps, that he owed the influence that he, without any great followers or successors, had upon the future theology of orthodox and heretic alike. Many of his ideas, and even a few of his very words, appear in documents like the later parts of the Pistis Sophia, and in certain Manichæan writings, although the strict monotheism which distinguishes them is in sharp contrast with the dualism of his successors. This begets a doubt whether these last were conscious borrowers of his opinion, or whether both he and they took their doctrines from some common source of Eastern tradition not now recognizable; but on the whole, the first-named hypothesis seems the more probable.
[103] Σατορνεῖλος. So Epiph., Haer. XXIII, and Theodoret, Haer. Fab., I, 3, spell the name. Iren., I, 22; Eusebius, H.E., IV, 7, and later writers spell it Σατορνῖνος. All these accounts, however, together with that in our text, are in effect copies of the chapter in Iren., which is the earliest in time that has remained to us. Salmon in D.C.B., s.v. “Saturninus,” thinks that this last is itself copied from Justin Martyr, which is likely enough, but remains without proof.
[104] Epiphanius, Haer. XXIII, p. 124, Oehl. adds to this that Saturninus and Basilides were co-disciples, which, if true, would connect their systems with Menander’s teacher, Simon Magus. Nothing further is, however, known about Saturnilus or Saturninus or his heresy, which Epiphanius makes the third after Christ, nor is there any mention in any of the heresiologies of any writings by him. His story of a First or Pattern Man made in the image of the Supreme Being is common, as has been said, to many of the early heresies, and reappears in Manichæism. It is probably to be referred to some tradition current in Western Asia. See Bousset’s Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, cap. “Der Urmensch.”
[105] τῆς αὐθεντίας, “one who holds absolute rule.” Summa potestas, Cr.
[106] Cf. Gen. i. 26.
[107] This story is also met with among the Ophites. See Iren. (I, xxx. 5), where life is given to the grovelling figure by Jaldabaoth, the chief of the seven powers. Epiphanius adds to it that the world-makers divided the cosmos among them by lot, and that it was a spark of his own Power that the “Power on high” sent down for the vivification of the First Man, “which spark, he says, they fancy to be the human soul.”
[108] καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ἐξ ὧν ἐγένετο, εἰς ἐκεῖνα ἀναλύεσθαι.
[109] So Miller. Theodoret has Σωτῆρα, “Saviour,” for Father.
[110] Words in ( ) restored from Epiphanius.
[111] No necessary mistake or confusion, as has been thought. The “deposition” might be merely that of an unsuccessful general, as in Manichæism.
[112] Marcion of Pontus was the heresiarch most dreaded by the Ante-Nicene Fathers, and is said to have led away from the Primitive Church a greater number of adherents than any teacher of that age, with the doubtful exception of Valentinus. He also differed from all other heretics of the time in setting up a Church fully equipped with bishops, priests, and deacons over against the Catholic, and in seeing that his followers openly avowed their faith in times of persecution. He rejected the Old Testament entirely, and reduced the New to a shorter edition of the Gospel of St. Luke and ten of the Epistles of St. Paul. This has led to his heresy receiving more attention than any other of its contemporaries at the hands of modern scholars, especially in Germany. Hence it is to be regretted that the chapter in our text which is devoted to him adds nothing to our knowledge of his history or tenets, while its statement that Marcion called the Demiurge πονηρός (wicked) shows either that Hippolytus was ignorant of Marcion’s opinions, or that he misread his authority. The first is the more likely theory, as his master Irenæus gives a more scanty account of Marcion than of any other heretic, while promising to write a special treatise against him. This intention does not seem to have been carried out, and it is probable that while the Marcionite heresy flourished at an early date in the Eastern provinces of the Empire, it had too slight a hold in the West to have given such writers as Irenæus and Hippolytus much first-hand knowledge concerning it. It is also noted that in the so-called “epitome of heresies” in Book X, Hippolytus does not, after his manner with the other heresies, quote from this chapter.
[113] τοῦ παντός. This expression, as has been many times said above, means the universe without the Void. It does not therefore, exclude the collateral existence of Chaos or unformed matter.
[114] This accusation of incontinence against Marcion is disproved by Tertullian, de Præscript, c. 30. Cf. Forerunners, II, 206, n. 5.
[115] Φιλία, Cr., “Amicitia,” Macm., “Friendship.” The stronger word Love seems to express better Hippolytus’ meaning. It is, of course, distinct from the ἀγάπη or “charity” of the A. V.
[117] κλεψιλόγος, “word-stealer.”
[118] κοσμεῖται, “set in order.”
[119] κρούνωμα βρότειον, ll. 55-57, Karsten; 33-35, Stein. Cr. translates these words humanam scaturiginem, and Macm., “the mortal font.” It is difficult to assign any meaning to them in the absence of the context.
[120] τρεφομένοις, “things in course of nurture.”
[121] ζῷα, “animals.”
[122] He appears to ignore the desert, or perhaps thinks this no part of the ordered world.
[123] ὑπόθεσιν, lit., “substructure.”
[124] πνεῦμα, a manifest slip for Ἀήρ as before.
[125] στοργή, as in the N. T.
[126] ὀλέθριον.
[127] εἰς τὸ ἓν ἀποκαταστάσεως. The Codex has τὸν ἕνα. That the meaning is as given above, see p. 373 Cr., where we find ἐκ πολλῶν ποιήσῃ τὸ ἕν κ.τ.λ.
[128] ll. 110, 111, Stein. In p. 274 Cr., supra, these lines are quoted as the opinions of “the Pythagoreans.”
[129] τὸ πᾶν, not τὸ ὅλον. See n. on I, p. 35 supra.
[130] ἰδέα, “species”; so Cruice.
[131] κλάδοι, lit., “branches.”
[132] ll. 107, 205, Karsten.
[133] l. 7, Karsten; 381, Stein.
[134] ll. 4, Karsten; 372, 373, Stein.
[135] l. 5, Karsten; 374, Stein.
[136] νοητός, “that which can be understood by the mind rather than by the senses.”
[137] εἴδεα θνητῶν, “forms of mortals.”
[138] ll. 6, Karsten; 375, 376, Stein.
[139] ll. 15-19, Karsten; 377-380, Stein.
[140] μεμερισμένου, minutatim divisi, Cr.
[141] ἐγκρατεῖς εἶναι, “to be abstainers.”
[142] ll. 1, 2, Karsten; 369, 370, Stein.
[143] νοητήν, as before.
[144] ἐπινοεῖσθαι.