Hippolytus

Footnotes

^[954] The Ophites are not considered, as Hippolytus has already devoted so much of his work to the Naasseni. The former denomination is derived from the Greek, and the latter from the Hebrew, and both signify worshippers of the serpent.

^[955] Hippolytus seemingly makes this a synonyme with Ophites. Perhaps it is connected with the Hebrew word נָחָשׁ

Contents.

^[956] Or, “fruitless;” or “unmeaning.”

Chapter I.—An Account of Contemporaneous Heresy.

^[957] [Elucidation IV.]

^[958] [1 Cor. xi. 19. These terrible confusions were thus foretold. Note the remarkable feeling, the impassioned tone, of the Apostle’s warning in Acts xx. 28-31.]

^[959] [The Philosophumena, therefore, responds to the Apostle’s warnings. Col. ii. 8; 1 Tim. vi. 20; Gal. iv. 3, 9; Col. ii. 20.]

Chapter II.—Source of the Heresy of Noetus; Cleomenes His Disciple; Its Appearance at Rome During the Episcopates of Zephyrinus and Callistus; Noetianism Opposed at Rome by Hippolytus.

^[960] See Fragments of Hippolytus’ Works (p. 235 et seq.), edited by Fabricius; Theodoret, Hær. Fab., iii. 3; Epiphanius, Hær., lvii.; and Philastrius, Hæret., liv. Theodoret mentions Epigonus and Cleomenes, and his account is obviously adopted by Hippolytus.

^[961] [See Tatian, vol. ii. p. 66, this series.]

^[962] [See note 2, cap. iii. infra., and Elucidation V.]

^[963] [See Elucidation VI.]

^[964] [See Elucidation VI.]

^[965] [Note the emphasis and repeated statement with which our author dwells on this painful charge.]

^[966] [Elucidation VI.]

^[967] 2 Pet. ii. 22. [See book x. cap xxiii., p. 148, infra.]

Chapter III.—Noetianism an Offshoot from the Heraclitic Philosophy.

^[968] [῾Ο Σκοτεινός, because he maintained the darkest system of sensual philosophy that ever shed night over the human intellect.—T. Lewis in Plato against the Atheists, p. 156; Elucidation VII.]

^[969] [Note the use of this phrase, “imagine themselves, etc.,” as a specialty of our author’s style. See cap. ii. supra; Elucidation VIII.]

^[970] [Note the use of this phrase, “imagine themselves, etc.,” as a specialty of our author’s style. See cap. ii. supra; Elucidation VIII.]

Chapter IV.—An Account of the System of Heraclitus.

^[971] This addition seems necessary from Stobæus’ account of Heraclitus. (See Eclog. Phys., i. 47, where we have Heraclitus affirming that “unity is from plurality, and plurality from unity;” or, in other words, “that all things are one.”)

^[972] Dr. Wordsworth for δίκαιον suggests εἰκαῖον, i.e., “but that the Deity is by chance.” There is some difficulty in arriving at the correct text, and consequently at the meaning of Hippolytus’ extracts from Heraclitus. The Heraclitean philosophy is explained by Stobæus, already mentioned. See likewise Bernays’ “Critical Epistle” in Bunsen’s Analect. Ante-Nicæn. (vol. iii. p. 331 et seq. of Hippolytus and his Age), and Schleiermacher in Museum der Alterthumswissenschaft, t. i. p. 408 et seq.

^[973] παλίντροπος. Miller suggests παλίντονος, the word used by Plutarch (De Isid. et Osirid., p. 369, ed. Xyland) in recounting Heraclitus’ opinion. Παλίντονος, referring to the shape of the bow, means “reflex” or “unstrung,” or it may signify “clanging,” that is, as a consequence of its being well bent back to wing a shaft.

^[974] Compare Aristotle’s Rhet., iii. 5, and Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math., lib. vii. p. 152, ed. Aurel, 1621.

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