Refutation of All Heresies

Contents

1. 0.1The heading introducing the contents of Book 1.
2. 0.2Book 1 sets out the views of the natural, moral, and dialectical philosophers.
3. 0.3A list of the natural philosophers treated in Book 1.
4. 0.4Socrates and Plato are listed as the moral philosophers; Plato combined all three branches.
5. 0.5Aristotle and the Stoics are listed as dialecticians.
6. 0.6The list ends with Epicurus, Pyrrho, the Brahmins, the Druids, and Hesiod.
7. 1.0.1Hippolytus explains that he once refuted the heretics only in outline, hoping shame would make them stop.
8. 1.0.2Because the heretics do not repent, Hippolytus will expose the secret teachings they give only to those they have drawn in.
9. 1.0.3The initiate is bound to secrecy by oaths and, still more, by the shame of what he has done.
10. 1.0.4An initiate who revealed these deeds would be counted worse than a beast.
11. 1.0.5Hippolytus resolves to set out all the heretics' teachings in detail so that others will not be misled.
12. 1.0.6Only the Holy Spirit given to the church can refute heresy, and Hippolytus, as a successor of the apostles, must guard the church and teach.
13. 1.0.7Hippolytus will both expose error and proclaim the truth received from the Father.
14. 1.0.8Hippolytus will first set out Greek philosophy, to show that the heresies come from it rather than from Scripture.
15. 1.0.9Each heresy will then be matched with the philosopher from whom its founder borrowed.
16. 1.0.10The work is laborious, but its reward will be like the athlete's crown or the farmer's harvest.
17. 1.0.11Hippolytus begins with the first Greek natural philosophers, from whom the heresiarchs stole their ideas.
18. 1.1.1Thales taught that water is the origin and end of all things.
19. 1.1.2According to Thales, all things arise from water as it thickens and thins.
20. 1.1.3Thales held the first principle to be divine, without beginning or end.
21. 1.1.4Thales founded Greek astronomy and, gazing at the sky, fell into a well, to a servant girl's amusement.
22. 1.2.1Pythagoras founded the Italian school after fleeing Samos for Italy.
23. 1.2.2Pythagoras called God a unity and taught that the universe is ordered by number and harmony.
24. 1.2.3Pythagoras made his pupils keep silent until they were judged ready to speak.
25. 1.2.4Pythagoras divided his followers into an inner and an outer circle.
26. 1.2.5Pythagoras is said to have practiced magic and invented physiognomy based on number.
27. 1.2.6In Pythagorean teaching the first monad is male and fathers the numbers; the dyad is female and even.
28. 1.2.7The triad is male and odd; the tetrad female and even.
29. 1.2.8One, two, three, and four add up to ten, the perfect number.
30. 1.2.9Pythagoras called the four that make ten the sacred tetractys, the source of all number.
31. 1.2.10Combining powers and cubes yields the seven numbers from which all things are generated.
32. 1.2.11Pythagoras taught the immortality and transmigration of the soul and listed his own former lives.
33. 1.2.12Pythagoras is said to have learned from Zaratas the Chaldean that all things come from two causes, light and darkness.
34. 1.2.13Zaratas taught that two powers, heavenly fire and earthly water, produce all things.
35. 1.2.14Pythagoras forbade eating beans, claiming they arose with the first life and smell of human seed.
36. 1.2.15A further proof: a buried bean flower was said to take human form.
37. 1.2.16Pythagoras died in a fire at Croton; his disciples gave up their property and kept years of silence.
38. 1.2.17Some disciples escaped the fire, among them Zamolxis, said to have taught the Druids.
39. 1.2.18Pythagoras learned his numbers from the Egyptian priests and imitated their secrecy.
40. 1.3.1Empedocles taught that strife and love are the principles of all things and that all will return to fire.
41. 1.3.2Empedocles taught that souls pass into all kinds of creatures, as he claimed of himself.
42. 1.4.1Heraclitus wept over human ignorance, claiming that he alone knew all things.
43. 1.4.2Heraclitus, like Empedocles, called strife and love the principles and God intelligent fire.
44. 1.4.3Heraclitus held that evils fill the region below the moon but not above it.
45. 1.5.1Hippolytus turns back to Thales' successors before treating ethical and logical philosophy.
46. 1.6.1Anaximander, Thales' pupil, taught that all worlds come from the boundless.
47. 1.6.2Anaximander was the first to name the boundless as the principle of things.
48. 1.6.3Anaximander described the earth as a column floating unsupported at the center.
49. 1.6.4Anaximander explained the stars as fire seen through vents in air, and eclipses as blocked vents.
50. 1.6.5Anaximander explained the moon's phases and ordered the sun, moon, and stars.
51. 1.6.6Anaximander held that living things arose through the sun's heat and that man first resembled a fish.
52. 1.6.7Anaximander explained winds, rain, and lightning; he lived about 610 BC.
53. 1.7.1Anaximenes taught that boundless air is the source of all things, even the gods.
54. 1.7.2Air, said Anaximenes, is invisible when even and always in motion.
55. 1.7.3Anaximenes taught that air becomes fire, cloud, water, earth, and stone as it thins or thickens.
56. 1.7.4Anaximenes held that the flat earth and the heavenly bodies ride on air.
57. 1.7.5The stars, said Anaximenes, arose from moisture rising from the earth and turning to fire.
58. 1.7.6Anaximenes held that the stars circle around, not under, the earth.
59. 1.7.7Anaximenes explained winds and clouds by the thinning and thickening of air.
60. 1.7.8Anaximenes explained hail, snow, lightning, rainbows, and earthquakes; he flourished about 548 BC.
61. 1.8.1Anaxagoras taught that mind ordered a mixture of boundless material principles.
62. 1.8.2In Anaxagoras's account, heavy things gathered to form the earth and light things rose to the ether.
63. 1.8.3Anaxagoras held the flat earth floats on strong air.
64. 1.8.4Anaxagoras explained the origin of the sea.
65. 1.8.5Anaxagoras explained rivers and the Nile's summer flood.
66. 1.8.6The heavenly bodies, said Anaxagoras, are fiery stones.
67. 1.8.7Anaxagoras ordered the heavenly bodies and said the sun is larger than the Peloponnese.
68. 1.8.8The moon's light, Anaxagoras taught, comes from the sun.
69. 1.8.9Anaxagoras explained eclipses and the turnings of sun and moon.
70. 1.8.10Anaxagoras first explained eclipses and said the moon has plains and ravines.
71. 1.8.11Anaxagoras explained winds, thunder, and lightning.
72. 1.8.12Anaxagoras explained earthquakes, the origin of living things, and the sex of offspring.
73. 1.8.13Anaxagoras flourished about 428 BC, when Plato was born.
74. 1.9.1Archelaus was an Athenian.
75. 1.9.2Archelaus followed Anaxagoras, making the separation of hot and cold the source of motion.
76. 1.9.3Archelaus placed the earth at rest in the center, with the stars formed from burning.
77. 1.9.4Archelaus argued the earth is hollow, since the sun does not rise and set for all at once.
78. 1.9.5Archelaus taught that living things first arose from warm mud.
79. 1.9.6Humans later separated from other animals and founded cities; all living things, Archelaus said, have mind.
80. 1.10.1Hippolytus ends his survey of natural philosophy with Archelaus, the teacher of Socrates.
81. 1.11.1Parmenides held that the universe is one, eternal, and spherical, yet named fire and earth as principles.
82. 1.12.1Leucippus taught that worlds form from bodies colliding in the void by an undefined necessity.
83. 1.13.1Democritus, pupil of Leucippus, learned from sages in India, Egypt, and Babylon.
84. 1.13.2Democritus taught that atoms move in the void and that there are countless worlds.
85. 1.13.3The worlds, said Democritus, arise, flourish, and perish by colliding.
86. 1.13.4Democritus described the order of our world and laughed at all human affairs.
87. 1.14.1Xenophanes first taught that nothing can be known with certainty.
88. 1.14.2Xenophanes taught that God is one, eternal, spherical, and perceives with all his being.
89. 1.14.3Xenophanes held that a new sun forms daily and that there are countless suns and moons.
90. 1.14.4Xenophanes and Metrodorus explained why the sea is salty.
91. 1.14.5Xenophanes cited fossils of sea creatures inland as proof that the land was once under the sea.
92. 1.14.6Xenophanes held that the earth periodically sinks into mud, destroying mankind, and begins again.
93. 1.15.1Ecphantus taught that indivisible bodies are moved by divine mind and that the earth rotates.
94. 1.16.1Hippo made water and fire the principles and identified the soul with the brain or with water.
95. 1.17.1Having covered the natural philosophers, Hippolytus turns to Socrates and Plato.
96. 1.18.1Socrates, who valued "Know yourself," left no writings; Plato was his ablest pupil.
97. 1.18.2Plato combined natural, ethical, and dialectical philosophy.
98. 1.19.1Plato named God, matter, and the pattern as the principles of the universe.
99. 1.19.2The pattern, in Plato, is God's thought, the ideas by which he fashioned all things.
100. 1.19.3Plato held God to be incorporeal and matter to be potential body.
101. 1.19.4Plato's world is unbegotten as made from eternal matter, but perishable as a composite body.
102. 1.19.5Some Platonists compared the world to a wagon kept forever whole by repairing its parts.
103. 1.19.6Some read Plato as teaching one God, citing the Laws.
104. 1.19.7Others read Plato as teaching many gods, citing the Timaeus.
105. 1.19.8Plato's gods, some say, are generated but kept immortal by God's will.
106. 1.19.9Plato accepted good and bad daemons.
107. 1.19.10Interpreters disagree whether Plato's soul is unbegotten, or generated but immortal, or perishable.
108. 1.19.11Those who hold Plato's soul immortal point to his teaching on judgment after death.
109. 1.19.12Some say Plato taught that souls return in new bodies according to their deserts.
110. 1.19.13Others say Plato taught that souls receive places by desert, some with the gods and some in eternal punishment.
111. 1.19.14Plato distinguished opposites with and without an intermediate.
112. 1.19.15For Plato only goods of the soul are truly good; bodily and external goods are only so called.
113. 1.19.16Plato's four virtues each lie between two vices, and possessing them brings happiness.
114. 1.19.17Plato defines happiness as becoming as like God as possible, holy and just with wisdom.
115. 1.19.18Plato held that the virtues always agree while the vices are many and conflicting.
116. 1.19.19Plato admitted fate but also human freedom and responsibility.
117. 1.19.20Plato taught that wrongdoing is involuntary, arising from ignorance of the good.
118. 1.19.21Hippolytus cites a passage he attributes to the Republic that wrongdoing is involuntary.
119. 1.19.22Plato said punishment is good because it purifies the wrongdoer and deters others.
120. 1.19.23For Plato evil is not made by God but is a falling away from the good.
121. 1.20.1Aristotle made philosophy systematic, distinguishing substance and nine kinds of accident.
122. 1.20.2Aristotle's ten categories are illustrated with examples.
123. 1.20.3Aristotle agreed with Plato on most points except the soul.
124. 1.20.4Aristotle held that the soul survives only for a time and then vanishes into the fifth element.
125. 1.20.5Unlike Plato, Aristotle held that the wise man also needs bodily and external goods.
126. 1.20.6Aristotle placed evil below the moon and held only the world soul immortal.
127. 1.20.7The Peripatetics were named for walking while they taught, the Stoics for the Painted Porch.
128. 1.21.1The Stoics made God, the purest body, the principle of all, with providence pervading everything.
129. 1.21.2The Stoics compared human freedom under fate to a dog tied to a cart.
130. 1.21.3The Stoics held the soul to be a body formed by cooling air, surviving death.
131. 1.21.4The Stoics expected a cleansing conflagration of the world.
132. 1.21.5The Stoics held that everything is body and there is no void.
133. 1.22.1Epicurus made atoms and void the principles of all things.
134. 1.22.2For Epicurus even God is made of atoms, the smallest indivisible bodies.
135. 1.22.3Epicurus denied providence, placing an untroubled God outside the world.
136. 1.22.4Epicurus made pleasure the goal of wisdom, understood variously by his followers.
137. 1.22.5Epicurus taught that the soul dies with the body and denied judgment after death.
138. 1.23.1Pyrrho founded the skeptical school, which argued both sides and affirmed nothing.
139. 1.23.2The skeptics held that nothing is certainly true and all things are in flux.
140. 1.23.3Some skeptics refused all judgment; others said a thing is "no more" this than that.
141. 1.24.1The Indian Brahmins live simply on fallen fruit and abstain from meat and cooked food.
142. 1.24.2The Brahmins say God is light and Word, known only to those who cast off vainglory.
143. 1.24.3The Brahmins despise death, hymn God, and live without wives or children.
144. 1.24.4Others who join the Brahmins live across the river, where there are women and families.
145. 1.24.5The Brahmins regard the body as a garment and a battlefield against enemies.
146. 1.24.6Only those who conquer bodily passions, the Brahmins say, reach God.
147. 1.24.7The Brahmins honor Dandamis, condemn Calanus, and hope to see the sun after death.
148. 1.25.1The Celtic Druids learned Pythagorean philosophy from Zamolxis.
149. 1.25.2The Druids foretell the future by Pythagorean number lore and practice magic.
150. 1.26.1Hesiod claimed to learn about nature from the Muses, the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.
151. 1.26.2Hesiod's account of the origin of the gods, from Chaos, Earth, and Eros to Cronus and Zeus, is quoted at length.
152. 1.26.3The philosophers, amazed by creation, took parts of it for God and did not know the Creator.
153. 1.26.4Having set out the philosophers, Hippolytus will next treat mysteries and astrology, the other sources of heresy.
154. 4.1.1The surviving text of Book 4 begins mid-sentence in an account of astrological terms.
155. 4.1.2Astrologers speak of stars in trine and square aspects, and of sympathy between heaven and earth.
156. 4.2.1The Peratae borrowed astrological ideas for their doctrine of Aeons and powers, which Hippolytus will refute later.
157. 4.2.2Hippolytus will briefly show that Chaldean astrology is vain and harmful.
158. 4.2.3Because the Peratae rely on astrology, Hippolytus first refutes astrology itself.
159. 4.3.1All astrological prediction rests on fixing the horoscope, the rising sign.
160. 4.3.2Without the horoscope the whole Chaldean method collapses.
161. 4.3.3Fixing the horoscope requires knowing the moment of birth, an accurate signal, and exact observation.
162. 4.3.4None of the three requirements for a horoscope can be met.
163. 4.3.5Astrologers date birth either from conception or from delivery.
164. 4.3.6The moment of conception cannot be known precisely.
165. 4.3.7Conception may be instant or may take time as the seed travels in the womb.
166. 4.3.8Because the seed's path varies, astrologers cannot fix the time of conception.
167. 4.3.9If the seed changes before conception, the time is still less knowable.
168. 4.3.10Women differ in how quickly they conceive, so the moment cannot be fixed.
169. 4.4.1Nor can the moment of birth be defined precisely.
170. 4.4.2Births vary for many reasons, so their timing is not uniform.
171. 4.4.3The Chaldeans claim to know the hour of birth but cannot.
172. 4.4.4Astrologers claim a gong signals the birth to an observer on a height, but the birth itself is indefinite.
173. 4.4.5Even the sound of the gong takes time to reach the observer.
174. 4.4.6As with distant woodcutters, the sound arrives late, so the rising sign cannot be fixed exactly.
175. 4.4.7By the time the observer checks the heavens, the stars have already moved.
176. 4.5.1If experts cannot fix the moment of birth, a layman cannot supply it either.
177. 4.5.2The rising sign looks different from different places, so predictions cannot be precise.
178. 4.5.3Water clocks cannot measure the heavens accurately either.
179. 4.5.4People born at the same time live very different lives.
180. 4.5.5Many were born with Alexander or Plato, but none became their equal.
181. 4.5.6Same birth time, different fortunes: the similarity of charts proves nothing.
182. 4.5.7If birth under a sign meant a violent death, thousands slain in one battle could not all share it.
183. 4.5.8The Greeks drowned together returning from Troy cannot all have been born under the same sign.
184. 4.5.9Why should one man's fate to drown overrule the fates of all his shipmates?
185. 4.6.1Astrologers claim that people resemble the sign under which they are born.
186. 4.6.2By this logic no Ethiopian could be born under Virgo.
187. 4.6.3The constellations were named for convenience, not because they resemble the animals.
188. 4.7.1Astrology unnerves kings and emboldens commoners to reckless ventures.
189. 4.7.2Astrologers say a configuration returns only after 7,777 years, beyond any human observation.
190. 4.7.3Astrology has been refuted here only because the heretics use it.
191. 4.7.4Hippolytus turns to those who speculate about the sizes and distances of the heavens.
192. 4.7.5These theorists speak of circles, ratios, and measures.
193. 4.8.1The speculators follow Plato's account of the circles of the Same and the Other.
194. 4.8.2The outer revolution of the Same carries even the planets round with it.
195. 4.8.3The fixed stars move together, while the planets differ in period and distance.
196. 4.8.4Six cuts make seven circles for the seven planets.
197. 4.8.5The planetary distances follow the ratios of Plato's world soul.
198. 4.8.6Various astronomers' figures for the size of the earth and the distance of the moon are listed.
199. 4.8.7Distances between the planetary spheres are listed, from the moon to the outermost sphere.
200. 4.9.1Archimedes' figures for the distances of the planets from the earth are listed.
201. 4.10.1Hippolytus prefers Plato's double and triple ratios to the astronomers' conflicting figures.
202. 4.10.2Figures not in harmonic ratios would contradict a harmonious universe.
203. 4.10.3Only Archimedes' distance of the moon is trustworthy; the rest can be derived by Plato's ratios.
204. 4.10.4The ratios between Archimedes' distances are shown not to be harmonic.
205. 4.11.1Such ratios cannot belong to a harmonious world.
206. 4.11.2Only double and triple intervals preserve harmony.
207. 4.11.3The planetary distances are recalculated from Archimedes' lunar distance by Plato's ratios.
208. 4.11.4The recalculated distances of Venus, Mercury, and Mars continue.
209. 4.11.5The recalculated distances of Jupiter and Saturn complete the list.
210. 4.12.1Hippolytus mocks Ptolemy's measurements: pity he was not there to advise the builders of Babel.
211. 4.12.2Hippolytus ridicules the pride of the astronomers.
212. 4.13.1Some heretics, like Colarbasus, built their teaching on numbers and measures.
213. 4.13.2Number-diviners deceive the simple by boasting of their rare successes.
214. 4.14.1Number-diviners reduce each number to its "root" digit.
215. 4.14.2Hundreds and tens are likewise reduced to their leading digit.
216. 4.14.3Each Greek letter has a number value, which is likewise reduced to its root.
217. 4.14.4The method is illustrated with the name Agamemnon.
218. 4.14.5Agamemnon's name reduces to nine.
219. 4.14.6Hector's name reduces to one.
220. 4.14.7A shortcut: divide the sum by nine and take the remainder.
221. 4.14.8Hector reduces to one; the method is applied to Patroclus.
222. 4.14.9Some reckon by nines, others by sevens; by sevens Patroclus reduces to six.
223. 4.14.10When the sum divides exactly, the divisor itself is taken as the root.
224. 4.14.11An exact division by nine or seven gives nine or seven as the root.
225. 4.14.12Repeated letters are counted only once.
226. 4.14.13Rules for deciding which name "wins" a contest, illustrated by Sarpedon and Patroclus.
227. 4.14.14Letters counted as equivalent are reckoned only once.
228. 4.14.15By the rules, Ajax defeats Hector.
229. 4.14.16Menelaus defeats Paris by the number rules.
230. 4.14.17When the numbers give the wrong winner, the diviners claim the name was only an epithet.
231. 4.14.18Further contests of Homeric heroes decided by number.
232. 4.14.19Some diviners count only vowels or treat classes of letters separately.
233. 4.14.20Others use different values and ad hoc rules, finding nothing sound.
234. 4.15.1Hippolytus concludes his account of divination by numbers.
235. 4.15.2When their method fails, the diviners make excuses; any would-be heresiarch could exploit such nonsense.
236. 4.15.3Hippolytus turns to physiognomy, divination from the face.
237. 4.15.4Physiognomists describe the appearance of those born under Aries.
238. 4.15.5The character traits supposedly given by Aries are listed.
239. 4.16.1The appearance of those born under Taurus.
240. 4.16.2The character of those born under Taurus.
241. 4.17.1The appearance of those born under Gemini.
242. 4.17.2The character of those born under Gemini.
243. 4.18.1The appearance of those born under Cancer.
244. 4.18.2The character of those born under Cancer.
245. 4.19.1The appearance of those born under Leo.
246. 4.19.2The character of those born under Leo.
247. 4.20.1The appearance and character of those born under Virgo.
248. 4.21.1The appearance of those born under Libra.
249. 4.21.2The character of those born under Libra.
250. 4.22.1The appearance of those born under Scorpio.
251. 4.22.2The character of those born under Scorpio.
252. 4.23.1The appearance of those born under Sagittarius.
253. 4.23.2The character of those born under Sagittarius.
254. 4.24.1The appearance of those born under Capricorn.
255. 4.24.2The character of those born under Capricorn.
256. 4.25.1The appearance and traits of those born under Aquarius.
257. 4.25.2The character of those born under Aquarius.
258. 4.26.1The appearance of those born under Pisces.
259. 4.26.2The character of those born under Pisces.
260. 4.27.1Hippolytus begins to refute astrological physiognomy.
261. 4.27.2The names of the constellations were chosen for convenience and say nothing about human character.
262. 4.28.1After a gap, Hippolytus describes a magician's trick with a written question.
263. 4.28.2The magician pretends to burn the written question while secretly keeping it.
264. 4.28.3The magician feigns possession and chants incantations in Greek and mock Hebrew.
265. 4.28.4The trick is exposed: invisible ink revealed with chemicals.
266. 4.28.5Other invisible inks and how they are revealed.
267. 4.28.6The noise of the onlookers covers the magician's secret actions.
268. 4.28.7In darkness the magician lays the boy down and places papers by his ears.
269. 4.28.8Through a speaking tube the magician tells the boy what to say.
270. 4.28.9The tube may be a bird's windpipe or joined bronze pipes.
271. 4.28.10A leather tube or a rolled book can serve the same purpose.
272. 4.28.11Where he lacks information the magician gives ambiguous answers that fit any outcome.
273. 4.28.12The answer is revealed in water; frightening effects are made with salt hidden in incense.
274. 4.28.13Chemical tricks produce bloody flames and moving coals.
275. 4.29.1How magicians make eggs appear strangely colored.
276. 4.30.1Lambs are made to cut their own throats by an itching drug.
277. 4.30.2The drug is hidden in a double box.
278. 4.31.1Various tricks for killing animals and setting houses alight.
279. 4.31.2A flammable mixture that seems to burn without harming.
280. 4.32.1How magicians imitate thunder.
281. 4.32.2Magicians seem to handle boiling pitch and fire unharmed.
282. 4.32.3The magician invokes Asclepius with a hymn in the dark.
283. 4.33.1A fiery Asclepius and the gods appear in a basin of water.
284. 4.33.2The pitch trick is explained: it only seems to boil, and the hands are protected.
285. 4.33.3The burning stone pyramid is really oil-soaked clay.
286. 4.33.4Smoke from the mouth and the unburned cloth are explained.
287. 4.34.1How magicians open sealed letters and reseal them with a copied seal.
288. 4.34.2Other mixtures for copying seals.
289. 4.34.3The best compound for forging seals, used to read others' letters.
290. 4.34.4Hippolytus exposes these tricks to protect the young, and advises how to make seals tamper-proof.
291. 4.35.1Bowl divination uses a blue-painted room reflected in water to imitate the sky.
292. 4.35.2Accomplices in a hidden room below appear as gods through the glass-bottomed basin.
293. 4.35.3A demon's figure painted with flammable mixture seems to burst into flame.
294. 4.35.4The magician prepares his audience to see Hecate fly through the air.
295. 4.35.5The magician's hymn invoking Hecate.
296. 4.36.1Hecate's fiery flight is a bird released with burning tow.
297. 4.36.2The burning bird sometimes sets houses on fire.
298. 4.37.1A mirror, a basin, and a lamp make a moon appear on the ceiling.
299. 4.37.2A lit drum partly uncovered imitates the phases of the moon.
300. 4.37.3A lamp in a cut-off flask is lowered to make the moon seem to descend.
301. 4.37.4A lamp in a pot behind an altar throws a crescent moon on the ceiling.
302. 4.38.1Fish scales stuck to the ceiling imitate stars.
303. 4.39.1A burning mixture gives the illusion of an earthquake.
304. 4.40.1Writing on a liver is transferred from the magician's hand.
305. 4.41.1A talking skull is made of wax and caul, with a hidden speaking tube.
306. 4.42.1The heresiarchs imitated the magicians' techniques of secrecy and display.
307. 4.42.2Hippolytus explains why he has digressed on magic.
308. 4.42.3Hippolytus proposes to summarize what he has shown so far.
309. 4.43.1The philosophers disagreed about God, identifying him with one or another element.
310. 4.43.2Overawed by creation, the philosophers took parts of it for God and could not reach the true God.
311. 4.43.3The Persians said God is light.
312. 4.43.4The Babylonians called God darkness; the Egyptians' view follows.
313. 4.43.5The Egyptians held that God is a self-begotten unity from which all numbers and things come.
314. 4.43.6Ten, a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand all count as a unity.
315. 4.43.7The dyad too has a kinship with the monad.
316. 4.43.8From the unity came the four elements; the upper hemisphere of spirit and fire is male and beneficent.
317. 4.43.9The lower hemisphere of earth and water is female and maleficent; each pair has male and female.
318. 4.43.10Fire and water are male, spirit and earth female.
319. 4.43.11The elements' number values are reduced by nines, since the circle of 360 degrees is made of nines.
320. 4.43.12Light, life, and justice belong to the unity; darkness, death, and injustice to the dyad.
321. 4.43.13Names reckoned by number reduce to male or female values.
322. 4.44.1Names with odd values are counted lucky, even ones unlucky.
323. 4.44.2Amulets and herbs are chosen for their number values.
324. 4.44.3Egyptian number lore was even applied to healing.
325. 4.45.1Hippolytus hopes his survey will make pagans respect Christians and see their own follies.
326. 4.45.2Knowing these opinions will equip Christians to resist error and help the deceived.
327. 4.46.1Hippolytus turns to the heresies themselves, hoping to bring their followers back to the truth.
328. 4.46.2Some heretics allegorize Aratus's star-lore as images of Scripture.
329. 4.46.3The deceived are like the horned owl, easily caught by a spectacle.
330. 4.46.4The owl-catcher distracts the birds with a dance while others seize them.
331. 4.46.5Readers should not be caught by the heretics' star-dance like the owl.
332. 4.46.6Aratus describes the stars wheeling around the fixed axis of heaven.
333. 4.47.1The heretics take Aratus's word for "many" to mean "turning".
334. 4.47.2The heretics identify Aratus's Dragon near the pole with the devil in Job who goes about the earth.
335. 4.47.3The Dragon at the pole never sets and so, they say, sees everything.
336. 4.47.4Near the Dragon's head is the constellation of the Kneeler, which Aratus calls a toiling figure.
337. 4.47.5The heretics identify the Kneeler with Adam, who guards the serpent's head as in Genesis.
338. 4.48.1The Kneeler, between the Lyre and the Crown, seems to be confessing sin.
339. 4.48.2The seven-stringed Lyre, made by the infant Hermes (the Word), stands for the seven days of creation.
340. 4.48.3If Adam obeys the Word he wins the Crown; if not, he shares the beast's fate.
341. 4.48.4A smaller serpent tries to snatch the Kneeler's crown.
342. 4.48.5The Serpent-holder (Ophiuchus) holds the serpent back from the crown.
343. 4.48.6The heretics say the Serpent-holder is the Word protecting man.
344. 4.48.7The two Bears represent two creations: Adam's, and the new creation in Christ.
345. 4.48.8The Great Bear, which the Greeks steer by, stands for a creation that turns men back.
346. 4.48.9The Little Bear, by which the Phoenicians steer, stands for the narrow way of the few.
347. 4.48.10The Little Bear ("dog's tail") signifies the Word as guard dog and begetter.
348. 4.48.11Before the Dog Star rises, rootless plants still look alive.
349. 4.48.12As the Dog Star shows which plants live, the Word judges the living and the dead.
350. 4.48.13The Dragon lies between the two creations, keeping people from passing to the new one.
351. 4.48.14Another constellation group, Cepheus and his family, teaches the same lesson.
352. 4.49.1The heretics read Cepheus as Adam, Cassiepeia as Eve, Andromeda as the soul, and Perseus as the Word.
353. 4.49.2Perseus the Word rescues Andromeda the soul from the monster.
354. 4.49.3The Swan, which sings at death, symbolizes the divine Spirit.
355. 4.49.4The animal constellations are patterns of the creatures on earth.
356. 4.50.1Hippolytus warns readers not to be charmed like the owl by the heretics' star-lore.
357. 4.50.2The star names are human inventions, much later than the stars, and prove nothing.
358. 4.51.1Since most heresies build on Pythagorean number lore, Hippolytus summarizes it.
359. 4.51.2Geometry begins from the indivisible point, from which all figures are generated.
360. 4.51.3From the point come line, plane, and solid; Simon Magus borrowed this in his saying "the small will be great."
361. 4.51.4Arithmetic begins from the male unity, father of all numbers.
362. 4.51.5The dyad and tetrad are female and even; the triad male and odd.
363. 4.51.6One to four add up to the perfect number ten.
364. 4.51.7The tetractys is the root of all numbers.
365. 4.51.8The seven kinds of number generate all things.
366. 4.51.9Simon and Valentinus renamed the Pythagorean seven as their divine beings.
367. 4.51.10Others derived their sevens from the anatomy of the brain.
368. 4.51.11Hippolytus describes the anatomy of the brain.
369. 4.51.12The spirit passes from the brain through the spine to the whole body and the generative organs.
370. 4.51.13The cerebellum resembles a serpent's head, and seven pairs of nerves come from the brain.
371. 4.51.14With the four books on pagan thought complete, Hippolytus turns to the heretics who copied it.
372. 5.1.1The heading introducing the contents of Book 5.
373. 5.2.1Book 5 will treat the Naassenes and show their debt to Greek philosophy and the mysteries.
374. 5.3.1Book 5 will treat the Peratae and their astrological sources.
375. 5.4.1Book 5 will treat the Sethians and their borrowings from Greek poets.
376. 5.5.1Book 5 will treat the Gnostic Justin and his use of Herodotus.
377. 5.6.1Hippolytus recalls the labor of the first four books.
378. 5.6.2The heresiarchs patched together old errors and presented them as new.
379. 5.6.3Hippolytus begins with the Naassenes, named for the Hebrew word for serpent.
380. 5.6.4The Naassenes call themselves Gnostics and honor a divine Man and Son of Man.
381. 5.6.5The Naassenes hymn a male-female heavenly Man called Adamas.
382. 5.6.6The Naassenes divide the Man into intellectual, psychic, and earthly parts; knowing him leads to knowing God.
383. 5.6.7The Naassenes say the three natures came together in Jesus, and there are three kinds of church: chosen, called, and captive.
384. 5.7.1The Naassenes claim a tradition from James through Mariamne; Hippolytus will show it comes from pagan mysteries.
385. 5.7.2The Naassenes apply Isaiah's "who will tell his generation" to their Man.
386. 5.7.3The Greeks say Earth first brought forth man.
387. 5.7.4Different peoples claim different first men.
388. 5.7.5The Libyans and Egyptians have their own first men.
389. 5.7.6The Chaldeans' Adam lay lifeless, an image of the heavenly Adamas made by many powers.
390. 5.7.7A soul was given to the molded Adam so that the image of the perfect Man would suffer in bondage.
391. 5.7.8The Naassenes seek the soul's nature in the mysteries, not in Scripture.
392. 5.7.9The Naassenes use the Gospel of the Egyptians and Assyrian rites on the threefold soul.
393. 5.7.10They teach that all nature, even stone, desires soul, the cause of growth.
394. 5.7.11In Assyrian myth, Aphrodite (generation) loves Adonis (the soul).
395. 5.7.12Persephone's and Selene's loves are read as allegories of the soul.
396. 5.7.13The castration of Attis by the Mother of the gods is read as the soul's recall to the eternal realm.
397. 5.7.14The heavenly Man is both male and female.
398. 5.7.15The Naassenes forbid marital intercourse, reading Attis's castration as passage to a sexless new creation.
399. 5.7.16They cite Paul in Romans on creation revealing God.
400. 5.7.17The Romans passage continues on idolatry and unnatural passions.
401. 5.7.18The Naassenes reinterpret Paul's word "shamelessness" as the first shapeless substance.
402. 5.7.19They claim Paul's words hide their mystery, and that their baptism brings unfading pleasure.
403. 5.7.20The Naassenes cite a saying from the Gospel of Thomas about finding the kingdom in children.
404. 5.7.21Hippolytus traces the saying to Hippocrates, not Christ.
405. 5.7.22The Naassenes turn to the Egyptian mysteries of Isis.
406. 5.7.23Isis seeking Osiris is read as changeable creation clothed in the seven planets.
407. 5.7.24They read Proverbs' "the righteous falls seven times" as the motions of the planets.
408. 5.7.25The seed, cause of all things, is unmoved and becomes none of them.
409. 5.7.26They apply Jesus' saying that only the Father is good to their first principle.
410. 5.7.27This, they say, is the great Egyptian mystery.
411. 5.7.28The Naassenes see the phallic image of Osiris, set up publicly, as the "good" proclaimed on the housetops.
412. 5.7.29They say Hermes, shown as a phallic pillar, is the Word.
413. 5.7.30They read Homer's Hermes leading the suitors' souls as the call to souls fallen from the heavenly Man.
414. 5.7.31Homer's description of Hermes' golden wand is quoted.
415. 5.7.32They link Hermes' wand with the Psalm's rod of iron.
416. 5.7.33They cite "Wake up, sleeper" and say Christ is the Son of Man stamped on all things.
417. 5.7.34They link the Eleusinian cry, the Psalm, and Homer's image of souls following Hermes like bats.
418. 5.7.35They identify Adamas with the cornerstone of the Psalms and Isaiah.
419. 5.7.36The Naassenes say the inner man, cut from Adamas, fell into the earthly body.
420. 5.7.37Homer's souls following Hermes past Ocean are read as souls led to the eternal realm.
421. 5.7.38Ocean flowing down begets men, flowing up begets gods.
422. 5.7.39They read "you are gods" as promised to those who flee bodily union, and "you die like men" to those who return to it.
423. 5.7.40They distinguish mortal fleshly birth from immortal spiritual birth of water and spirit.
424. 5.7.41They read Joshua's parting of the Jordan as Jesus reversing the flow of generation.
425. 5.8.1The Naassenes treat Homer as their prophet and teach that all things come from three.
426. 5.8.2The three natures are the heavenly Man, the mortal below, and the "kingless race" figured by Moses' household.
427. 5.8.3They cite Homer's threefold division and Jesus' saying about hearing without hearing.
428. 5.8.4Their three secret words name the heavenly Man, the mortal man, and the upward-flowing Jordan.
429. 5.8.5They read John's prologue so that the material world is the "nothing" made without the Word.
430. 5.8.6They identify Joseph's divining cup with the cup of Anacreon's drinking song.
431. 5.8.7They link Anacreon's cup with the water turned to wine at Cana.
432. 5.8.8They say the kingdom of heaven lies hidden within like treasure or leaven.
433. 5.8.9They claim the Samothracian mysteries teach their Primal Man.
434. 5.8.10Two statues at Samothrace are said to represent the Primal Man and the reborn spiritual man.
435. 5.8.11They combine Jesus' sayings about eating his flesh and drinking his cup.
436. 5.8.12They teach that each person can only receive what fits his own nature.
437. 5.8.13They say the Thracians call this Man Corybas, whose descent from the "crown" cannot be understood.
438. 5.8.14They read "we have not seen his form" of the hidden Man in the body.
439. 5.8.15They read the Psalms' God over the flood as the Man crying out from the waters of generation.
440. 5.8.16They read Isaiah's promise of safety through rivers and fire as protection from generation and desire.
441. 5.8.17They put Isaiah's words of God's remembering into the mouth of Adamas.
442. 5.8.18They read Psalm 24's King of glory and Psalm 22's "worm and no man" as the reborn Man.
443. 5.8.19They read the Psalm's "war" as the body's inner conflict and Jacob's vision as the gate of rebirth.
444. 5.8.20Jacob's "gate of heaven" is linked with Jesus' "I am the gate."
445. 5.8.21Salvation, they say, requires rebirth through this gate.
446. 5.8.22The Phrygian name Papas is linked with "stop" and with the peace for those far and near.
447. 5.8.23They read "whitewashed tombs" and the dead leaving the tombs as bodies without and with the spiritual Man.
448. 5.8.24Resurrection for them is entry through the heavenly gate, by which one becomes a god.
449. 5.8.25They cite Paul's rapture to the third heaven.
450. 5.8.26They cite Paul on spiritual things that the "psychic" man cannot receive, claiming them for themselves.
451. 5.8.27They cite Jesus' sayings on being drawn by the Father and doing his will.
452. 5.8.28They pun on "tax collectors" and "ends", claiming to be those on whom the ends of the ages have come.
453. 5.8.29They apply the parable of the sower to themselves as the only true hearers.
454. 5.8.30They read the land of milk and honey as the Pleroma shared by the perfect.
455. 5.8.31The Man is "unfruitful" when fleshly; the only true fruits are the spiritual who enter the third gate.
456. 5.8.32They quote a saying about eating dead and living things, meaning spiritual words and men.
457. 5.8.33They read "do not throw pearls to swine" as a condemnation of sexual union.
458. 5.8.34They derive "goatherd" from a word for turning, making the Man the mover of the cosmos.
459. 5.8.35They support the etymology with "poles", Homer's Proteus, and "cities".
460. 5.8.36They read "more are the children of the desolate" as the many reborn spiritual children.
461. 5.8.37They read Rachel's weeping and Jeremiah's lament as grief over fleshly generation.
462. 5.8.38They cite Jeremiah's "who will know him" of the hidden perfect Man.
463. 5.8.39They say the Eleusinian mystery of the reaped ear of grain points to the Man.
464. 5.8.40They cite the Eleusinian hierophant's cry announcing the birth of a holy child.
465. 5.8.41They derive "Eleusis" from "coming" down and "Anactoreion" from going back up.
466. 5.8.42The lesser mysteries lead to the greater, for "greater deaths obtain greater portions."
467. 5.8.43The lesser mysteries of Persephone lie at the end of the broad road of the perishing.
468. 5.8.44The greater mysteries are the gate of heaven, open only to the spiritual, who become bridegrooms.
469. 5.8.45The virgin of Isaiah bears a spiritual Aeon; they cite the narrow and broad ways.
470. 5.9.1They call the Father an "almond" that split open to beget the ineffable Son.
471. 5.9.2The almond's splitting produced the invisible one through whom all things were made.
472. 5.9.3The one begotten is a "piper", harmonious spirit; they cite Jesus on worship in spirit.
473. 5.9.4The perfect worship in spirit the many-named being that all nature desires.
474. 5.9.5They describe the hidden word of God as a point from which all things grow.
475. 5.9.6They identify the kingdom and the mustard seed with the hidden point in the body.
476. 5.9.7They claim that everything, even theater, secretly speaks their mysteries.
477. 5.9.8A theater hymn to Attis lists his many names, which the Naassenes claim as their own.
478. 5.9.9Another hymn to the many-formed Attis.
479. 5.9.10The Naassenes attend the rites of the Great Mother and imitate her castrated priests.
480. 5.9.11The Naassenes forbid intercourse with women and worship the serpent.
481. 5.9.12They derive the word for temple from the serpent, claiming every rite honors him.
482. 5.9.13They make the serpent the moist substance, like Thales' water.
483. 5.9.14The serpent is good and gives beauty to all, like the river from Eden dividing into four.
484. 5.9.15They read Eden as the brain and the rivers of paradise as the senses, beginning with Pishon.
485. 5.9.16Pishon is the eye and Gihon hearing; the Tigris follows.
486. 5.9.17The Tigris is the sense of smell.
487. 5.9.18The Euphrates is the mouth, and the water above the firmament is the living water Jesus offers.
488. 5.9.19Each nature draws its own from this water, as a magnet draws iron.
489. 5.9.20Through the Naassenes, they claim, the blind may see how one water gives each plant its own fruit.
490. 5.9.21The Man is despised in the world; the Naassenes claim to draw their own from the living water through Jesus, the gate.
491. 5.9.22The Naassenes claim to be the only true Christians, anointed from the horn like David.
492. 5.10.1Hippolytus has given only a sample of the Naassenes' teaching and adds one of their hymns.
493. 5.10.2The Naassene psalm tells of the soul's wanderings and of Jesus descending with seals to reveal the hidden way.
494. 5.11.1Hippolytus compares heresy to the many-headed Hydra and will strike its heads one by one.
495. 5.12.1Hippolytus turns to the Peratae, who teach a world divided in three.
496. 5.12.2The Peratae's three parts are the perfect Good, the infinite powers, and the particular world.
497. 5.12.3The Peratae speak of three gods, words, minds, and men, one for each part of the world.
498. 5.12.4The Peratae say a threefold Christ came down in Herod's time bearing the powers of all three worlds.
499. 5.12.5They cite Colossians on the fullness dwelling bodily in Christ, and say seeds of power came down from the upper worlds.
500. 5.12.6The Peratae say Christ came to save the upper worlds, while the lower "world" must perish.
501. 5.13.1Hippolytus begins to show that the Peratae took their teaching from the astrologers, who divide the cosmos into the fixed sphere of the zodiac and the sphere of the planets.
502. 5.13.2The astrologers say the lower world draws power from the upper, and Hippolytus will quote their own words.
503. 5.13.3The Chaldeans taught that births below are caused by the outflow of the stars, the seven planets acting and the zodiac assisting.
504. 5.13.4The zodiac is divided into twelve signs of thirty degrees, each degree into sixty minutes.
505. 5.13.5The signs are classed as male or female, double-bodied or not, and turning or fixed.
506. 5.13.6Signs alternate male and female, which Hippolytus thinks led the Pythagoreans to call odd numbers male and even numbers female.
507. 5.13.7Some astrologers subdivide each sign into twelve parts and apply the same male–female alternation.
508. 5.13.8Hippolytus lists the double-bodied signs and the four turning signs where the sun marks the seasons.
509. 5.13.9The four turning signs mark the seasons; the Peratic leaders Euphrates and Celbes merely renamed the astrologers' doctrines.
510. 5.13.10Astrologers speak of zones where planets are stronger, of harmful and helpful planets, and of their aspects to one another.
511. 5.13.11Stars are said to be in aspect by their spacing, and earthly things are said to feel with the heavenly as the body with the head.
512. 5.13.12The Peratae took over Chaldean star lore and passed it off as Christ's teaching under new names such as “toparchs” and “suburbans.”
513. 5.13.13Hippolytus will set Peratic writings beside astrology to show they come from astrologers, not from Christ.
514. 5.14.1Hippolytus quotes a Peratic book that describes a watery power from Chaos which people named the Sea.
515. 5.14.2The Peratic book says that ignorance named this power Kronos, whose earthly copies were Cepheus, Prometheus, and Iapetus.
516. 5.14.3A male-female power over the sea, called Chorzar, was named Poseidon by ignorance.
517. 5.14.4A power around the twelve-angled pyramid, which ignorance named Kore, has five ministers with strange names.
518. 5.14.5The book names the planets and the rulers of air and winds, equating them with the Curetes and with Aeolus.
519. 5.14.6The rulers of night and day are named Soklan and Euno, whom ignorance called Osiris and Isis.
520. 5.14.7The book lists further powers, identified by ignorance with Rhea and Demeter, and their human copies.
521. 5.14.8The power over fruits (called Men) and the power of fire (called Hephaestus) are listed with their human images, many of them famed astrologers and magicians.
522. 5.14.9Three powers in the air, causes of birth, were named the Fates by ignorance.
523. 5.14.10The last power, called Eros by ignorance, ends the Peratic book titled “The suburbans up to the ether.”
524. 5.15.1Hippolytus concludes that the Peratic system is astrology with new names.
525. 5.15.2The Peratae hold that the world came about by outflow from above and that the visible stars cause its generation.
526. 5.15.3They teach that earthly things arise, perish, and are ruled by the stars' outflow.
527. 5.15.4The Peratae turned the astrologers' cardinal points into God (the center) and left and right powers.
528. 5.15.5Their “right” and “left” powers are just the astrologers' ascension and declination.
529. 5.16.1The Peratae (“those who cross over”) claim that they alone know how to pass beyond the fate that rules everything born.
530. 5.16.2The Peratae identify corruption with water and with Kronos, whom nothing born can escape.
531. 5.16.3Kronos brings every birth to decay, and the Peratae cite Homer's oath by the water of Styx as proof that even the gods fear water.
532. 5.16.4They cite Heraclitus, that for souls it is death to become water, and apply it to the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea.
533. 5.16.5The Peratae read the Exodus as escape from the body: Egypt is the body and the Red Sea is corruption.
534. 5.16.6The stars, gods of destruction, are the biting serpents of the wilderness.
535. 5.16.7Only the perfect serpent that Moses showed can save those who leave the body and the world.
536. 5.16.8The saving serpent is Moses' rod that swallowed the magicians' serpents, and it is the “wise word” spoken to Eve.
537. 5.16.9The Peratae make the serpent the river of Eden and the mark of Cain, and say that the god of this world prefers bloody sacrifice.
538. 5.16.10The Peratae say the serpent appeared under Herod and was prefigured by Joseph's coat and by Esau.
539. 5.16.11The perfect serpent is Nimrod the hunter and the serpent Moses lifted up, as John 3:14 says.
540. 5.16.12The Peratae identify the serpent with the constellation in heaven and with the Word of John's prologue.
541. 5.16.13The “life” that came to be in the Word is Eve.
542. 5.16.14Eve is the common nature of all beings, and the serpent in the sky is the source of all motion and every event.
543. 5.16.15The head of the heavenly Dragon, where setting and rising meet, is the great wonder that the poet Aratus described.
544. 5.16.16The Peratae read the neighboring constellations (Crown, Lyre, Kneeler, Serpent-holder) as parts of their myth.
545. 5.17.1Hippolytus summarizes the Peratic system: the universe consists of Father, Son, and Matter.
546. 5.17.2The Son, identified with the serpent, receives forms from the Father and stamps them on formless Matter.
547. 5.17.3The Son is imprinted by the Father as Jacob's rods imprinted colors on the conceiving flocks.
548. 5.17.4Powers flow from the Son into Matter like the colors onto Jacob's flocks, producing corruptible and incorruptible births.
549. 5.17.5Like a painter copying without diminishing his models, the Son copies the Father's characters into Matter.
550. 5.17.6Whoever recognizes that he is a copy of the Father becomes consubstantial with him and ascends; whoever does not perishes.
551. 5.17.7The Peratae distinguish the heavenly Father of the Gospels from the murderous demiurge of John 8:44.
552. 5.17.8Only the Son, the serpent, can carry the awakened back up to the Father.
553. 5.17.9The Son is the door of John 10:9; the rest of the sentence is lost.
554. 5.17.10As a magnet draws iron, the serpent draws the perfect race back from the world.
555. 5.17.11The Peratae compare the brain to the Father and the serpent-shaped cerebellum to the Son.
556. 5.17.12Life-giving substance passes through the pineal gland and cerebellum into the spinal marrow, as forms pass from the Son into Matter.
557. 5.17.13Their secret mysteries, Hippolytus says, are easy to grasp from this analogy.
558. 5.18.1Hippolytus ends his account of the Peratae, whose own teachings condemn them.
559. 5.19.1The Sethians teach three principles, each with countless powers, that is, capacities to become anything.
560. 5.19.2A child can become anything by being near a master of that art; so too with the principles.
561. 5.19.3The Sethian principles are light above, darkness below, and between them spirit, like a fine fragrance.
562. 5.19.4Light shines down into darkness, while the spirit's fragrance spreads in every direction.
563. 5.19.5Light and spirit have been drawn down into the darkness, which is a fearful water.
564. 5.19.6The darkness knows it is nothing without the light and strives to keep the captured spark.
565. 5.19.7The pupil of the eye pictures the struggle: darkness keeps the light, while light and spirit strive to recover it.
566. 5.19.8The countless intelligent powers of the principles are at rest when kept apart.
567. 5.19.9When unlike powers meet, their meeting produces motion and activity.
568. 5.19.10Each meeting of powers stamps an image like a seal, and so there are countless images.
569. 5.19.11The first meeting of the principles produced heaven and earth, shaped like a womb.
570. 5.19.12Countless further meetings of powers produced countless womb-shaped seals and so all living creatures.
571. 5.19.13Spirit and light are scattered in all creatures, and from the water came a violent wind, the cause of generation.
572. 5.19.14The wind stirs waves, which become pregnant with man or mind.
573. 5.19.15The mind, a divine spark from the light above, is born of water into human bodies and seeks release.
574. 5.19.16The light above seeks to free the mind from the dark body and from the wind that begot it.
575. 5.19.17The captured ray of light is the spirit “borne above the water” of Genesis; the rest is damaged.
576. 5.19.18The hissing wind is like a serpent, and from it all generation began.
577. 5.19.19The serpent-wind enters the unclean womb and begets man.
578. 5.19.20The Sethians say the Word took the serpent's likeness and entered a virgin's womb to free the imprisoned mind.
579. 5.19.21After his birth the Word washed and drank living water, which all must drink to put on a heavenly garment.
580. 5.20.1The Sethian doctrine is patched together from natural philosophy and borrowed sayings.
581. 5.20.2The Sethians find their three principles in every triad of the books of Moses.
582. 5.20.3The Sethians' three laws are the prohibition in Eden, the call of Abraham, and the commandments with fixed penalties.
583. 5.20.4The Sethian teaching derives from the old poets Musaeus, Linus, and Orpheus.
584. 5.20.5Their doctrine of the womb and navel is in Orphic poems and in the rites of Phlius, older than the Eleusinian mysteries.
585. 5.20.6Hippolytus describes a painting at Phlius of a winged old man pursuing a dark woman, which he links to Sethian doctrine.
586. 5.20.7The painting's inscriptions are read as light flowing downward and the dark water below.
587. 5.20.8The Sethian rites resemble those of Phlius, and Homer's threefold division of the world is cited for their three principles.
588. 5.20.9The Sethians borrow from Homer to describe the dark water that holds the fallen light.
589. 5.20.10Homer's oath by the Styx shows, they say, that water is dreadful, as it is to the mind.
590. 5.21.1The Sethians urge their disciples to study the philosophical theory of blending and mixture.
591. 5.21.2The spark of light is mixed into the dark waters like many incenses in one scent.
592. 5.21.3A skilled nose can pick out each ingredient in mixed incense.
593. 5.21.4Metals mixed in gold or silver, and water in wine, can be separated by skill.
594. 5.21.5The Sethians read Christ's “sword” as the separation of the light from its mixture.
595. 5.21.6Only the Sethians, reborn as spiritual, know the place where the mixed elements are separated.
596. 5.21.7Hippolytus charges that they twist good texts and hide their error in parables.
597. 5.21.8Mixed things are drawn to their own places, as iron to a magnet.
598. 5.21.9Through teaching, the captured ray hastens to the Word who came in a slave's form and becomes one with him.
599. 5.21.10The Sethians cite a Persian well whose single draught separates into three substances.
600. 5.21.11The well yields salt, asphalt, and black oil, as Herodotus relates.
601. 5.21.12The Sethians count the well their best proof.
602. 5.22.1Hippolytus points to the Paraphrase of Seth for the full Sethian system and turns to the Gnostic Justin.
603. 5.23.1The Gnostic Justin leads his hearers back to Greek myths and binds them by oath before revealing his mystery.
604. 5.23.2Justin sweetens his long books with myths, then binds his followers by dreadful oaths before handing on his mysteries.
605. 5.23.3All these sects share one spirit and call themselves Gnostics, claiming special knowledge.
606. 5.24.1Justin requires an oath of secrecy, citing Paul's “what eye has not seen” and the Lord's oath in the Psalm.
607. 5.24.2Hippolytus will expose Justin's secrets from one of his books.
608. 5.24.3Justin's book Baruch is built on a myth taken from Herodotus.
609. 5.25.1Herodotus tells how Heracles, asleep in Scythia, lost his horse.
610. 5.25.2A half-maiden in the wilderness promises to show Heracles his horse if he will lie with her.
611. 5.25.3The creature is maiden above and viper below; Heracles lies with her and foretells three famous sons.
612. 5.25.4Heracles names the sons, recovers his horse, and leaves; Hippolytus now turns to Justin's use of the myth.
613. 5.26.1Justin teaches three principles: the Good, the Father, and a female half-maiden, half-viper.
614. 5.26.2The Father, named Elohim, and the female Eden desire each other and unite.
615. 5.26.3From Elohim and Eden come twelve paternal angels, among them Baruch.
616. 5.26.4Eden makes twelve maternal angels, among them Babel and Naas.
617. 5.26.5The twenty-four angels together are the paradise “planted in Eden.”
618. 5.26.6The tree of life is the angel Baruch and the tree of knowledge is the angel Naas.
619. 5.26.7Elohim's angels made man from Eden's human upper part, and the beasts came from her lower part.
620. 5.26.8Adam receives soul from Eden and spirit from Elohim, a symbol of their marriage.
621. 5.26.9Eve likewise has soul from Eden and spirit from Elohim, and the first couple is told to inherit “the earth,” meaning Eden.
622. 5.26.10Justin explains the dowry as an imitation of Eden's gift to Elohim.
623. 5.26.11Eden's twelve angels form four groups, the four rivers of paradise, and rule the world.
624. 5.26.12The angelic groups rotate around the world in turn.
625. 5.26.13Wherever each group of Eden's angels rules, famine and disease follow in turn.
626. 5.26.14Evil began when Elohim rose to the heights of heaven, leaving the earthly Eden below.
627. 5.26.15Seeing a higher light, Elohim asks to enter, realizing he is not the supreme Lord.
628. 5.26.16Elohim enters to the Good one, sees what no eye has seen, and is seated at his right hand.
629. 5.26.17Elohim asks leave to destroy the world in order to recover his spirit from humankind.
630. 5.26.18The Good one refuses and bids Elohim stay with him, leaving creation to Eden.
631. 5.26.19Abandoned, Eden adorns herself hoping to win Elohim back.
632. 5.26.20In Justin's myth, the abandoned Eden has Babel (Aphrodite) cause adultery and the breakup of marriages to torment Elohim's spirit in humans.
633. 5.26.21Eden sets the angel Naas to torment Elohim's spirit in humans, and Elohim sends Baruch to help.
634. 5.26.22Baruch tells Adam to obey Eden's angels except Naas, the lawless tree of knowledge.
635. 5.26.23In Justin's myth Naas seduces Eve and abuses Adam, the origin of adultery and of sex between males, while Elohim's ascent shows the way up.
636. 5.26.24Baruch was sent to Moses to turn Israel to the Good one.
637. 5.26.25Naas, working through the soul, obscured Baruch's commands to Moses; so soul and spirit war in everyone.
638. 5.26.26Baruch was sent to the prophets, but Naas led them all astray.
639. 5.26.27Elohim sent Heracles, a Gentile prophet, whose twelve labors were victories over Eden's twelve angels.
640. 5.26.28Omphale (Babel) seduced Heracles and stripped him of his power, so his mission failed.
641. 5.26.29Baruch comes to the twelve-year-old Jesus, a shepherd boy in Nazareth, and tells him the whole story.
642. 5.26.30Baruch charges Jesus to proclaim the Good one and ascend to him.
643. 5.26.31Jesus stayed faithful; Naas had him crucified, but he left Eden's body on the cross and ascended.
644. 5.26.32From the cross Jesus gave the soul and body back to Eden and committed the spirit to the Father.
645. 5.26.33Justin identifies the Good one with Priapus, “maker before” all things.
646. 5.26.34In the myth of Leda and the swan, the swan is Elohim and Leda is Eden.
647. 5.26.35Justin reads other Greek myths, Ganymede and Danae, as his own story.
648. 5.26.36Justin reads Isaiah's “Hear, O heaven” as addressed to spirit and soul, with Israel meaning Eden.
649. 5.26.37Israel (Eden) did not know that Elohim was with the Good one, and so she torments the spirit in humans.
650. 5.27.1Justin's initiates swear the oath Elohim swore before the Good one.
651. 5.27.2The initiate swears secrecy, enters to the Good one, and drinks living water as a ritual washing.
652. 5.27.3Justin distinguishes the lower water of creation from the living water above, in which the spiritual are washed.
653. 5.27.4Justin reads Hosea's command to marry an unfaithful wife as the mystery of Eden's departure from Elohim.
654. 5.27.5Justin's followers twist the prophets in many books, chiefly Baruch; Hippolytus calls this the worst heresy he has met.
655. 5.27.6Hippolytus compares refuting Justin to Heracles cleaning the Augean stables.
656. 5.28.1Hippolytus closes Book 5 and announces that he will expose the following heresies, beginning with Simon.
657. 6.1.1Heading of the table of contents of Book 6.
658. 6.2.1Contents: Simon's doctrine, drawn from magic and poetry.
659. 6.3.1Contents: Valentinus, whose doctrine comes from Plato and Pythagoras rather than Scripture.
660. 6.4.1Contents: the Valentinians Secundus, Ptolemy, and Heracleon, who restated Greek philosophy.
661. 6.5.1Contents: Marcus and Colarbasus, given to magic and number lore.
662. 6.6.1Hippolytus recalls the serpent sects of Book 5 and promises to refute all the heresies that follow.
663. 6.7.1Simon of Gitta, a magician refuted by the apostles in Acts, tried to make himself a god, and later sects took their start from him.
664. 6.7.2Hippolytus introduces the story of Apsethus the Libyan, who also wished to be thought a god.
665. 6.8.1Apsethus, unable to become a god, contrived to be worshiped as one by the Libyans.
666. 6.8.2Apsethus taught parrots to say “Apsethus is a god” and set them free.
667. 6.8.3The parrots' cry spread through Libya, and the Libyans took Apsethus for a god.
668. 6.8.4A Greek retaught the parrots to expose the trick, and the Libyans burned Apsethus.
669. 6.9.1Simon is to be seen as another Apsethus, a man who made himself a god by a trick.
670. 6.9.2Hippolytus will “reteach Simon's parrots” that Simon was no Christ but an ordinary man.
671. 6.9.3Simon misread Moses' “God is a consuming fire” to make fire the principle of all things, borrowing from Heraclitus.
672. 6.9.4Simon's book, the Great Declaration, opens by calling the first principle the infinite power.
673. 6.9.5The infinite power dwells in man; it is a fire with a hidden and a manifest nature.
674. 6.9.6The hidden and manifest parts of fire correspond to Aristotle's potency and act or Plato's intelligible and sensible.
675. 6.9.7The manifest fire holds all visible things, the hidden fire all intelligible things.
676. 6.9.8Simon likens the heavenly fire to Nebuchadnezzar's great tree, which feeds all flesh.
677. 6.9.9The visible parts of the tree are consumed by the fire.
678. 6.9.10The fruit, if fully formed, is stored, while the chaff is burned.
679. 6.10.1Simon uses Isaiah's vineyard to show that the tree is man.
680. 6.10.2Simon cites “all flesh is grass” and makes the enduring word of the Lord the word born in the mouth.
681. 6.11.1Simon calls the fire perfect and intelligent, so that everything in it thinks and acts, and cites Empedocles on like knowing like.
682. 6.12.1All parts of the fire are intelligent, and the world arose from this unbegotten fire.
683. 6.12.2From the fire came six roots in pairs, Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reasoning and Reflection, holding the infinite power potentially.
684. 6.12.3The infinite power, “he who stands,” if fully realized in the six roots, becomes equal to the unbegotten power.
685. 6.12.4If left unrealized, the power perishes like an untrained talent that dies with its owner.
686. 6.13.1Simon pairs the powers with heaven and earth, sun and moon, air and water, and makes the seventh power the speaker of Isaiah 1:2.
687. 6.14.1Simon reworks the six days and the seventh day of rest to make himself divine.
688. 6.14.2The three days before sun and moon stand for Mind, Thought, and the seventh power.
689. 6.14.3The saying “before all the ages he begets me” is applied to the seventh power.
690. 6.14.4The seventh power is the Spirit borne above the waters, the image of the infinite power.
691. 6.14.5God formed man double, according to image and likeness.
692. 6.14.6The Spirit in man perishes with the world unless it is fully realized, when the small becomes great and eternal.
693. 6.14.7Simon makes paradise mean the womb, where God forms man.
694. 6.14.8Simon makes the river of Eden the umbilical cord, dividing into two arteries and two veins.
695. 6.14.9The cord joins the child at the navel; the rest of the sentence is lost.
696. 6.14.10The veins feed the fetus with blood and the arteries bring it spirit through the aorta to the heart.
697. 6.14.11The unborn child does not eat or breathe but is fed and receives spirit through the umbilical vessels.
698. 6.15.1Simon makes the rivers of Eden the senses of the unborn child and relates the five books of Moses to them.
699. 6.15.2Genesis stands for sight; Exodus comes next.
700. 6.15.3Exodus stands for hearing: after birth through the “Red Sea” of blood, the child tastes the bitter water of life.
701. 6.15.4The bitter water made sweet by Moses is compared to the magic herb moly in Homer.
702. 6.16.1Odysseus, protected by moly, escaped Circe's spell and restored his transformed companions.
703. 6.16.2Leviticus, the book of sacrifices and incense, stands for smell.
704. 6.16.3Numbers stands for taste and Deuteronomy for touch.
705. 6.16.4As touch confirms the other senses, Deuteronomy sums up the other four books.
706. 6.16.5With right teaching the potential in us is realized, bitter turns sweet, and we become like the infinite power.
707. 6.16.6The unrealized tree bears no fruit and is cut down and burned.
708. 6.17.1Simon explains his title “he who stands, stood, and will stand” as the stages of the divine power.
709. 6.17.2There are three “standing” Aeons, and through them the begotten one becomes equal to the unbegotten power.
710. 6.17.3The one power is all relations to itself, mother, father, consort, and child, and the root of all.
711. 6.17.4The desire for procreation comes from fire, which is why desire is called burning.
712. 6.17.5Blood turns to seed in men and milk in women; this is the “flaming sword that turns” in Genesis.
713. 6.17.6This power is both father and mother, and the tree of life guarded by it is the seventh power.
714. 6.17.7If rightly taught, the power in seed and milk grows from a spark into an infinite, unchanging power.
715. 6.18.1By his own system Simon made himself a god, like Apsethus the Libyan.
716. 6.18.2Hippolytus quotes the opening of a passage from Simon's Great Declaration.
717. 6.18.3From one root, Silence, come a male Mind above and a female Thought below, with Air between them.
718. 6.18.4Within the Air is the Father, “he who stands,” a male-female power from which Thought proceeded.
719. 6.18.5The one power became two by manifesting himself, and was called Father only when Thought named him.
720. 6.18.6Power and Thought mirror each other and are really one male-female being.
721. 6.18.7The being that appears from them is one yet two, as Mind is in Thought.
722. 6.19.1Simon also allegorized the poets, such as the Trojan horse and Helen, to fit his myth.
723. 6.19.2Simon said his Thought was the lost sheep, who once dwelt in Helen of Troy and caused the Trojan war.
724. 6.19.3Stesichorus was blinded for slandering Helen; passed from body to body, she ended in a brothel in Tyre, where Simon found her.
725. 6.19.4Simon claimed to have come to redeem Helen; Hippolytus says he bought a woman he loved and invented the myth to excuse it.
726. 6.19.5Hippolytus charges Simon's followers with promiscuity, which they call perfect love, claiming that the redeemed cannot sin.
727. 6.19.6Simon claimed to have come in disguise to correct the angels' misrule, appearing as Son, Father, or Holy Spirit to different peoples.
728. 6.19.7Simon's followers reject the prophets as inspired by the world-making angels and claim freedom to do as they wish.
729. 6.19.8They teach that evil is only a convention of the world-making angels and expect the world's dissolution.
730. 6.20.1Simon's disciples practice magic and worship images of Simon as Zeus and Helen as Athena.
731. 6.20.2Simon, cursed by the apostles in Samaria, later went to Rome, where Peter opposed him.
732. 6.20.3Simon had himself buried alive, promising to rise on the third day, and never rose.
733. 6.20.4Valentinus's six Aeons are Simon's six roots renamed; Hippolytus turns to Valentinus.
734. 6.21.1Hippolytus says that Valentinus built on Pythagoras and Plato, and first recalls their teaching.
735. 6.21.2Hippolytus will summarize Pythagoras and Plato again so that Valentinus's borrowing can be seen.
736. 6.21.3Pythagoras and Plato took their teaching from Egypt; Valentinus borrowed it from them, renamed it, and made a Greek heresy foreign to Christ.
737. 6.22.1Plato's Timaeus traces its account of the world to Egyptian wisdom brought to the Greeks by Solon.
738. 6.22.2Hippolytus will set out Pythagoras's teaching and then show how Valentinus applied it to Christ, the Father, and Silence.
739. 6.23.1Pythagoras made the unbegotten monad the father and the begotten dyad the mother of all numbers.
740. 6.23.2Zaratas, Pythagoras's teacher, called one the father and two the mother; from them come the numbers up to ten.
741. 6.23.3For Pythagoras ten is the perfect number, bodies arise from point, line, and surface, and the tetraktys (1+2+3+4=10) generates the perfect number.
742. 6.24.1Pythagoras distinguished an intelligible world from the monad and a sensible world from the tetraktys and the number ten.
743. 6.24.2Substance with its nine accidents (Aristotle's categories) makes up the perfect number ten.
744. 6.24.3We know the intelligible world by reason and the sensible world by the five senses.
745. 6.24.4Intelligible things cannot be known by the senses.
746. 6.24.5Sensible things are known by the senses, not by reason.
747. 6.24.6Touch judges hard and soft, and the ordering of the world is seen to follow number.
748. 6.24.7As numbers are built up by addition and broken down by subtraction,
749. 6.25.1The world is held together by a numerical and musical bond, and Strife and Love will never cease.
750. 6.25.2Love keeps the world one and everlasting; Strife tries to divide it into many.
751. 6.25.3Strife divides the world into creatures and makes things come to be; Love gathers them back into the one universe.
752. 6.25.4Pythagoras taught that souls come from the stars, are entombed in the body, and become immortal when released.
753. 6.26.1Plato, a disciple of Pythagoras, called philosophy the separation of soul from body; Pythagorean riddles call the passions Furies.
754. 6.26.2The riddle warns the soul leaving the body not to cling to it, reflecting belief in transmigration.
755. 6.26.3Souls that do not practice philosophy pass through animals and plants; those that do return to their star.
756. 6.27.1Hippolytus recalls Pythagoras's symbolic sayings, because the heretics imitate that manner of speech.
757. 6.27.2“Tie up the bedding-bundle” means to be ready to die at any moment.
758. 6.27.3Every morning the Pythagoreans reminded one another to be ready for death.
759. 6.27.4Hippolytus explains several Pythagorean maxims: do not provoke anger, despise small things, stir up strife, or take up menial work.
760. 6.27.5“Do not bite a whole loaf” means to preserve one's capital; “do not eat beans” means to avoid public office.
761. 6.28.1The Pythagoreans make the sun the craftsman of the world, set in it like a soul in a body.
762. 6.28.2Fire and earth, joined by air, make up the body of the universe, which the sun numbers and measures.
763. 6.28.3The sun divides the world into the twelve signs of the zodiac.
764. 6.28.4By dividing and recombining degrees and minutes, the sun produces the year and the great year of the world.
765. 6.29.1Valentinus and his school, Heracleon and Ptolemy, built their teaching on Pythagorean number, not on the Gospels.
766. 6.29.2The Valentinians' first principle is an unbegotten, generative monad, which they call Father.
767. 6.29.3Some Valentinians make the Father solitary; others give him a consort, Silence.
768. 6.29.4Hippolytus leaves that dispute aside and follows the version with a solitary Father.
769. 6.29.5The Father, alone and at rest, was love, and so brought forth what was best in himself.
770. 6.29.6The Father emitted Mind and Truth, mother of all the Aeons in the Pleroma.
771. 6.29.7Mind and Truth emit Word and Life, who emit Man and Church, and Mind and Truth offer the Father ten Aeons.
772. 6.29.8Ten is the perfect number offered to the perfect Father, who alone produced all roots through Mind and Truth.
773. 6.30.1Word and Life wished in turn to glorify their parents, Mind and Truth.
774. 6.30.2Because Mind and Truth were begotten, Word and Life offered them an imperfect number, twelve Aeons.
775. 6.30.3The first six Aeons are the roots; ten Aeons come from Mind and Truth and twelve from Word and Life,
776. 6.30.4Twenty-eight Aeons in all; the ten are named in pairs.
777. 6.30.5The twelve Aeons are named in pairs, ending with Willed and Wisdom.
778. 6.30.6Sophia, the youngest Aeon, noticed that only the Father begets without a consort.
779. 6.30.7Sophia tried to beget alone like the Father, not knowing that only the unbegotten can do so.
780. 6.30.8Without a male partner Sophia could only emit formless substance.
781. 6.30.9The formless substance is the “invisible and unfurnished earth” of Genesis and the promised land, the heavenly Jerusalem.
782. 6.31.1Sophia's formless offspring caused alarm among the Aeons, who feared corruption.
783. 6.31.2At the Aeons' plea the Father has Mind and Truth emit Christ and the Holy Spirit to shape the abortion and comfort Sophia.
784. 6.31.3With Christ and the Holy Spirit the Aeons number thirty.
785. 6.31.4Christ and the Holy Spirit separate Sophia's formless offspring from the other Aeons.
786. 6.31.5The Father emits the Aeon Cross, the Boundary that guards the Pleroma of thirty Aeons.
787. 6.31.6The Boundary is also called Participator and Cross, keeping the Deficiency out of the Pleroma.
788. 6.31.7Outside the Boundary is the Ogdoad, the outer Sophia, whom Christ formed into a perfect Aeon.
789. 6.31.8Having formed the outer Sophia, Christ and the Holy Spirit returned into the Pleroma.
790. 6.32.1The thirty Aeons together emitted one Aeon, the common fruit of the Pleroma, as an offering to the Father.
791. 6.32.2The common fruit is Jesus, the great high priest; meanwhile the outer Sophia feared she would perish without Christ.
792. 6.32.3Sophia, grieving and perplexed, turned to entreat the one who had left her.
793. 6.32.4The Aeons sent Jesus, the common fruit, to be Sophia's consort and heal her passions.
794. 6.32.5The Fruit healed Sophia's four passions but saw that, being eternal, they could not simply be destroyed.
795. 6.32.6Sophia's passions became substances: fear the psychic, grief the material, perplexity the demonic, and her turning the “right” power.
796. 6.32.7The Demiurge arose from Sophia's fear; he is fiery and is called Place, Hebdomad, and Ancient of Days.
797. 6.32.8The Demiurge is the “consuming fire” of Deuteronomy; the soul is a middle realm, the Hebdomad.
798. 6.32.9The soul, between the Ogdoad and matter, becomes immortal if it is made like what is above, and perishes if it is made like matter.
799. 6.33.1The Valentinians make the devil and Beelzebul the rulers of matter and demons, and the ignorant Demiurge a tool of Sophia who wrongly claims to be the only God.
800. 6.34.1Valentinus reuses the Pythagorean tetraktys: Sophia is spirit, the Demiurge soul, and the devil and Beelzebul rulers of world and demons.
801. 6.34.2The thirty Aeons emitted further Aeons in proportion, to complete a perfect number.
802. 6.34.3Like the Pythagoreans, the Valentinians subdivide the Pleroma and the Ogdoad.
803. 6.34.4Sophia and her bridegroom emitted heavenly “words”; the Demiurge, called Abraham, emitted souls and made bodies for them from matter.
804. 6.34.5The breath of Gen 2:7 is the psychic inner man, housed in a material body made from the devilish substance.
805. 6.34.6The body is an inn housing the soul alone, or the soul with demons, or the soul with heavenly words.
806. 6.34.7The Valentinians read Eph 3 as describing the Father (depth), the Cross (breadth), and the Pleroma (length).
807. 6.34.8The foolishness of 1 Cor 2:14 is the Demiurge's ignorance of Sophia's work through him.
808. 6.35.1The Valentinians say the law and prophets came from the foolish Demiurge, citing John 10:8.
809. 6.35.2The prophets knew nothing of the Valentinian mysteries; the psychic man had a veil over his heart until the time of revelation.
810. 6.35.3The Valentinians read the annunciation as Sophia (Spirit) and the Demiurge (Most High) acting together in Jesus' birth.
811. 6.35.4Jesus, the new man, received his body from the Demiurge and his substance from Sophia, a heavenly Word born through Mary.
812. 6.35.5The question of Jesus' body split the Valentinians into Eastern and Italian schools.
813. 6.35.6The Italian school (Heracleon, Ptolemy) held that Jesus' body was psychic and that the Spirit came on him at his baptism.
814. 6.35.7The Eastern school (Axionicus, Ardesianes) held that the Savior's body was spiritual.
815. 6.36.1Hippolytus leaves the dispute to them.
816. 6.36.2Sophia taught the Demiurge that he was not the only God, and he kept the secret, as his words to Moses show.
817. 6.36.3Jesus was born through Mary to heal the passions of the soul, as the higher Christ healed Sophia's.
818. 6.36.4The Valentinians teach three Christs: the one emitted in the Pleroma, the common fruit, and the one born of Mary.
819. 6.37.1Hippolytus will close his account of Valentinus with a refutation.
820. 6.37.2Hippolytus quotes Plato's riddle to Dionysius about the king of all and the second and third things.
821. 6.37.3Plato's letter continues: the soul's restless inquiry about these things is the source of evils.
822. 6.37.4Plato's letter warns that such teachings can seem credible or incredible at different times.
823. 6.37.5Plato says he has written nothing on these matters; Valentinus made Plato's “king of all” his Father and Depth.
824. 6.37.6Valentinus made Plato's second things the Aeons within the Boundary, and the third things what lies outside.
825. 6.37.7Hippolytus quotes Valentinus's psalm, which sets out the hierarchy of being from flesh up to the depth.
826. 6.37.8Hippolytus decodes the psalm: flesh is matter, soul the Demiurge, air the outer Sophia, ether the Pleroma, and the fruits the Aeons.
827. 6.37.9Hippolytus ends his account of Valentinus and turns to his followers' differing views.
828. 6.38.1Secundus taught a right and a left tetrad and said that the fallen power came from the Aeons' fruits.
829. 6.38.2Epiphanes taught that Oneness and Unity, without emitting, produced the Monad.
830. 6.38.3Monad and One complete a first tetrad; others name the first Ogdoad Pre-principle, Inconceivable, Ineffable, and Invisible.
831. 6.38.4Each of the first four powers emitted a second, completing the first Ogdoad, which they place before Depth and Silence.
832. 6.38.5The Valentinians disagree about Depth; Ptolemy's followers give him two consorts, Thought and Will.
833. 6.38.6From the Father's Thought and Will came the pair Only-begotten (Mind) and Truth.
834. 6.38.7Mind images the Will and Truth the Thought, since Thought could emit only when Will was added.
835. 6.39.1Marcus, a magician among the Valentinians, claimed to hold the greatest power.
836. 6.39.2Marcus made the eucharistic cup turn purple or red to make people think grace had come upon it.
837. 6.39.3Hippolytus explains the trick: Marcus secretly added a dye and talked until it dissolved.
838. 6.40.1Marcus had a woman give thanks over a small cup and then poured it back and forth into a larger one.
839. 6.40.2With an invocation of Grace, Marcus made the small cup seem to fill and overflow the larger one.
840. 6.40.3The trick used an effervescent drug smeared in the empty cup, which foamed up as the wine was poured.
841. 6.40.4Marcus had the cup drunk quickly before the foam subsided, and people took it as divine.
842. 6.41.1Marcus was thought to prophesy and taught his disciples that, belonging to the perfect power, they could sin without danger.
843. 6.41.2Marcus's followers promise a second rite after baptism, called redemption,
844. 6.41.3They use the promise of a second forgiveness, and further promises, to keep their followers bound to them.
845. 6.41.4A secret word is spoken over the one who receives the redemption, or into his ear by the bishop at death.
846. 6.41.5The secret keeps disciples attached to their bishop; Hippolytus withholds it to avoid seeming to slander them.
847. 6.42.1Irenaeus exposed these rites, which some deny; Hippolytus has inquired carefully into their two washings.
848. 6.42.2Like Valentinus, who claimed to have seen the Word as a newborn child, Marcus invented a vision.
849. 6.42.3Marcus claimed that the Tetrad appeared to him as a woman and revealed the origin of all things.
850. 6.42.4The Father, wishing to express himself, spoke a Word like himself.
851. 6.42.5The Father's name was spoken in four syllables of four, four, ten, and twelve letters.
852. 6.42.6The name has thirty letters; each letter knows only its own sound and thinks it names the whole.
853. 6.42.7The restoration of all things comes when all letters sound as one, pictured in the common “Amen”; the sounds are the angels who see the Father's face.
854. 6.43.1Marcus calls the letters Aeons, Words, Roots, Seeds, Fullnesses, and Fruits.
855. 6.43.2The last sound of the last letter fell below and produced the lower world, while the letter itself was taken back up.
856. 6.43.3Each letter's name is spelled with other letters, whose names are spelled with others, without end.
857. 6.43.4For example, “delta” is spelled with five letters, each of which is spelled with others.
858. 6.43.5Hippolytus mocks the endless regress of letters out of which Marcus builds his Forefather.
859. 6.43.6Since no one can utter the whole name, the Father let each Aeon sound its own letter.
860. 6.44.1The Tetrad offers to show Marcus Truth herself.
861. 6.44.2Marcus describes Truth as a body made of the Greek alphabet, paired letters for each part from head to foot.
862. 6.44.3This lettered figure, called Man, is the source of all speech; Marcus is told to hear the Word from Truth's mouth.
863. 6.45.1Truth spoke the name “Christ Jesus” and fell silent.
864. 6.45.2The Tetrad tells Marcus he knows the name's sound but not its power.
865. 6.45.3The six-letter name “Jesus” used by the called differs from the manifold name known in the Pleroma.
866. 6.46.1The twenty-four letters of the alphabet are emanations of three higher powers.
867. 6.46.2The nine mute consonants belong to Father and Truth, the eight semivowels to Word and Life, the seven vowels to Man and Church.
868. 6.46.3To correct the deficient number, one who was set apart in the Father came down, restoring the unity of the Pleroma.
869. 6.46.4Three groups of eight make twenty-four, which is also six times the ineffable Tetrad.
870. 6.46.5The double letters, added to the twenty-four, make thirty.
871. 6.47.1Marcus reads the Transfiguration as a number mystery: Jesus went up as the fourth and became the sixth.
872. 6.47.2The dove at Jesus' baptism is “omega and alpha,” since the letters of “dove” add up to 801.
873. 6.47.3Christ's passion on the sixth day and at the sixth hour regenerated the first man.
874. 6.47.4Six is the number of creation and regeneration, and it completes the thirty-letter name.
875. 6.48.1The Demiurge, in imitation of a higher sevenfold power, ensouled the world of the seven heavens.
876. 6.48.2Each of the seven heavens sounds one of the seven Greek vowels.
877. 6.48.3The heavens' united praise, echoing to earth, shapes earthly things, as newborns' cries show.
878. 6.48.4Infants' cries praise the Word like the seven heavens, and the soul in pain cries “O” to summon help from above.
879. 6.49.1Marcus derives the twenty-four letters from the first powers by addition and multiplication.
880. 6.49.2The first tetrad's secret names are Ineffable, Silence, Father, and Truth.
881. 6.49.3Marcus counts the letters of divine names, including the letters in the spelled-out names of each letter of “Christ,” and links “alpha and omega” to the dove.
882. 6.50.1Jesus' secret generation: from the first tetrad came the second, making an ogdoad, and from it the decad.
883. 6.50.2Eight multiplied by ten gives 8, 80, 800, totaling 888, the numerical value of “Jesus” in Greek.
884. 6.50.3The Greek alphabet's numerals sum to 888, the number of Jesus, who is therefore “alpha and omega.”
885. 6.51.1Marcus maps the annunciation onto the second tetrad: Gabriel, Holy Spirit, power of the Most High, and the Virgin.
886. 6.51.2At the baptism the higher power came down on Jesus as a dove, carrying the seed of the elect.
887. 6.51.3The power that descended on Jesus contains the Father, the Son, Silence, and all the Aeons.
888. 6.51.4The Spirit united with Jesus spoke through him; the Savior destroyed death and made the Father known.
889. 6.51.5“Jesus” names the human of the economy, who, receiving the heavenly Man, became all the Aeons.
890. 6.52.1Hippolytus judges Marcus's system to be astrology and Pythagorean arithmetic, not godly knowledge.
891. 6.52.2The Marcosians, like the Pythagoreans, derive all from monad and dyad; 1+2+3+4 makes ten.
892. 6.52.3Even numbers 2+4+6 make twelve, and 2 through 10 make thirty.
893. 6.52.4They say the twelfth Aeon's fall is the lost sheep, since twelve contains the “notable” number six.
894. 6.52.5They connect the lost coin and the lost sheep with the number ninety-nine, which is also the value of “Amen.”
895. 6.52.6Eta is eighth counting the episemon, and the values of the letters up to eta without it add up to thirty.
896. 6.52.7The letter values from alpha to eta (without six) total thirty, and three times thirty is ninety.
897. 6.52.8By adding and removing units from 8, 10, and 12 they arrive at ninety-nine.
898. 6.52.9Lambda, the eleventh letter (value thirty), brings the sum of the letter values to ninety-nine, imaging the fall of the twelfth Aeon.
899. 6.52.10Two lambdas make M, the twelfth letter; the Marcosians seek the “one” that turns ninety-nine into a hundred, from the left hand to the right.
900. 6.53.1The four elements and their four qualities are said to image the upper tetrad and ogdoad.
901. 6.53.2The Marcosians count ten heavenly powers: seven heavens, the enclosing eighth heaven, the sun, and the moon.
902. 6.53.3They say the ten heavenly bodies image the invisible Decad and the twelve signs of the zodiac image the Duodecad.
903. 6.53.4They make the slow outermost heaven, which takes thirty years to go round, an image of Limit, which encloses their thirty-named Mother.
904. 6.53.5The moon's thirty days stand for the thirty Aeons, the sun's twelve months for the Duodecad.
905. 6.53.6The twelve hours of the day and the 360 degrees of the zodiac are also made into symbols of their numbers.
906. 6.53.7They say the earth is divided into twelve zones, each receiving a power from the heavens, as a type of the Duodecad above.
907. 6.54.1They say the Demiurge, himself the fruit of a deficiency, tried to imitate the eternal Ogdoad by multiplying times and years.
908. 6.54.2Because truth escaped the Demiurge, they say, his work is false and will be dissolved when its times are complete.
909. 6.55.1Hippolytus sums up: the Valentinians keep inventing ever newer doctrines about creation and count novelty as fruitfulness.
910. 6.55.2Hippolytus will not repeat their allegorical number-readings of Scripture, which Irenaeus already refuted, and says they took them from Pythagoreans and astrologers.
911. 6.55.3Having finished with Marcus and Colarbasus, Hippolytus turns to Basilides.
912. 7.1.1Heading for the table of contents of Book 7.
913. 7.2.1Contents: Basilides took his system from Aristotle.
914. 7.3.1Contents: Saturnilus, a contemporary of Basilides.
915. 7.4.1Contents: Menander taught that angels made the world.
916. 7.5.1Contents: Marcion's doctrine comes from Empedocles, not Scripture.
917. 7.6.1Contents: Carpocrates also said angels made the world.
918. 7.7.1Contents: Cerinthus drew on Egyptian ideas, not Scripture.
919. 7.8.1Contents: the Ebionites and their Jewish customs.
920. 7.9.1Contents: Theodotus borrowed from the Ebionites and Cerinthus.
921. 7.10.1Contents: Cerdo, Marcion's teacher.
922. 7.11.1Contents: Lucian, a disciple of Marcion.
923. 7.12.1Contents: Apelles, Marcion's disciple, who departed from his teacher.
924. 7.13.1Heresies are like a monster-filled sea, such as the Sicilian sea of the Odyssey, which a wise hearer should sail past.
925. 7.13.2Odysseus stopped his companions' ears with wax and had himself bound to the mast to pass the Sirens safely.
926. 7.13.3Hippolytus advises readers either not to listen to heresies at all or to listen while bound fast by faith to the cross of Christ.
927. 7.14.1Hippolytus will first summarize Aristotle so that readers can see Basilides' doctrines are borrowed from him.
928. 7.15.1Aristotle divides substance into genus, species, and the individual, which cannot be further divided.
929. 7.15.2A genus is like a heap of many seeds from which all species come; an example will make this clear.
930. 7.16.1Aristotle's example: “animal” in general, which is no particular animal, gives the particular animals their being.
931. 7.16.2Every particular animal takes its origin from the general “animal,” which is none of them.
932. 7.17.1Hippolytus argues that on Aristotle's account the things that exist come from something that is none of them, and he defers the question of who laid down this origin.
933. 7.18.1When a member of the species “human” is picked out by a name such as Socrates, it is an individual substance.
934. 7.18.2The named individual cannot be divided further; this is what Aristotle calls substance in the primary sense.
935. 7.18.3“Said of a subject” means a common term like “animal,” which is truly said of many different species.
936. 7.18.4The definition of animal, an ensouled and sentient substance, applies equally to every animal.
937. 7.18.5“In a subject” means qualities such as color or justice, which cannot exist on their own but only in something else.
938. 7.18.6Hippolytus concludes that on Aristotle's terms primary substance is made up of things that do not exist on their own, and so comes from what is not.
939. 7.19.1Substance is also described as matter, form, and privation; Hippolytus now turns to Aristotle's picture of the world.
940. 7.19.2For Aristotle the region below the moon runs by nature without providence, while the region above the moon is governed by providence.
941. 7.19.3The outer heaven is a fifth substance beyond the elements, and Aristotle's philosophy is divided to match his division of the world.
942. 7.19.4Aristotle's writings follow this division: the Physics for things below the moon, the Metaphysics for things above it, and a treatise on the fifth substance as his theology.
943. 7.19.5Aristotle's doctrine of the soul is unclear: his definition is easy to state but hard to understand.
944. 7.19.6Aristotle defines the soul as the actuality of an organic body, and God, cause of all good things, is harder still to know.
945. 7.19.7Aristotle defines God as thought thinking itself, which Hippolytus calls inconceivable, and holds the world to be eternal.
946. 7.19.8Aristotle also wrote on ethics; if Basilides has transferred Aristotle's words into the gospel, his disciples are pagans whom Christ will not profit.
947. 7.20.1Basilides and his son Isidore claim secret teachings from Matthias, which Hippolytus says falsify both Matthias and the Savior.
948. 7.20.2Basilides begins: once there was nothing at all, not even “nothing” as a thing; “was” is used only for want of a better word.
949. 7.20.3What Basilides speaks of is beyond even the word “unspeakable,” above every name that is named.
950. 7.20.4Basilides says names cannot fit even the world, and homonymy breeds confusion.
951. 7.20.5Hippolytus says this teaching on names was stolen from Aristotle's Categories, written generations before Basilides.
952. 7.21.1When nothing existed, Basilides says, the “non-existent God,” without thought or will, willed to make a world.
953. 7.21.2“Willed” is only a manner of speaking, and the “world” meant is the seed of the world.
954. 7.21.3Like a mustard seed or a peacock's egg, the one seed laid down by the non-existent God contained the whole world in potential.
955. 7.22.1Everything the world would ever contain was stored in the seed, to unfold in time as teeth and reason appear later in a child.
956. 7.22.2Basilides rejects emanation or pre-existing matter as the way God made the world.
957. 7.22.3Basilides reads “Let there be light” as creation from nothing by the word of a God who “was not.”
958. 7.22.4The seed of the world is the word “Let there be light,” which Basilides identifies with the true light of John's Gospel.
959. 7.22.5This seed is Aristotle's genus, divided into countless species.
960. 7.22.6Whatever comes into being later was already stored in the cosmic seed, so one need not ask where it came from.
961. 7.22.7The seed contained a threefold Sonship, of one substance with the non-existent God: one fine, one coarse, one needing purification.
962. 7.22.8The first, fine Sonship at once rushed upward to the non-existent God, whom every nature longs for.
963. 7.22.9The second, coarser Sonship could not rise on its own.
964. 7.22.10The second Sonship rises by putting on the Holy Spirit as a wing, like the winged soul of Plato's Phaedrus.
965. 7.22.11Like a bird and its wing, the Sonship and the Spirit need each other to rise.
966. 7.22.12When the second Sonship came near the non-existent God, it could not take the Spirit with it, since the Spirit was not of its substance.
967. 7.22.13The realm of the non-existent God was as unnatural to the Spirit as dry air to fish.
968. 7.22.14The Spirit, left behind as a boundary, keeps the scent of the Sonship like a jar that once held ointment; the third Sonship remains below in the seed-mass.
969. 7.23.1After the two ascents, the Holy Spirit remained as a firmament between the world and what lies beyond it.
970. 7.23.2Basilides divides reality into the world and what is above it, with the Holy Spirit as the boundary between.
971. 7.23.3From the seed-mass there burst forth the great Archon, head of the world.
972. 7.23.4The great Archon rose to the firmament and, thinking nothing lay beyond, took himself for the highest, not knowing the third Sonship was greater.
973. 7.23.5Thinking himself lord, the Archon set about creating and begot a son wiser than himself.
974. 7.23.6The Archon, amazed at his son's beauty, seated him at his right hand.
975. 7.23.7The Archon's seat is the Ogdoad; he made the ethereal creation, prompted by his wiser son.
976. 7.24.1Hippolytus says the Archon and his son are Aristotle's body and soul under new names.
977. 7.24.2As Aristotle's soul governs the body, so Basilides' son governs the Archon.
978. 7.24.3The ethereal region down to the moon is ruled by the great Archon; then a second, lesser Archon arose from the seed-mass.
979. 7.24.4The second Archon rules the Hebdomad and likewise begot a wiser son.
980. 7.24.5Below the Hebdomad things develop by nature as planned in the seed, with no ruler over them.
981. 7.25.1The third Sonship must be revealed and restored above, which Basilides finds in Paul's words about creation awaiting the revelation of God's sons.
982. 7.25.2Basilides' followers call themselves the spiritual sons left below to perfect souls.
983. 7.25.3From Adam to Moses the great Archon reigned in ignorance, which Basilides reads as Paul's “sin reigned” and the hidden mystery.
984. 7.25.4The Archon of the Hebdomad is the God who spoke to Moses and did not reveal the higher God's name.
985. 7.25.5The prophets spoke from the Hebdomad; when God's children were to be revealed, the gospel came through every power.
986. 7.25.6Nothing actually descended; like naphtha catching fire from afar, powers reach from below up to the Sonship.
987. 7.25.7Through the Spirit at the boundary, the thoughts of the Sonship pass to the son of the great Archon.
988. 7.26.1Through his son the great Archon learned he was not the supreme God, and he turned in fear.
989. 7.26.2The Archon's fear was the beginning of wisdom, as the Christ beside him taught him the whole system, the wisdom spoken in a mystery.
990. 7.26.3Taught by the Spirit's wisdom, the Archon confessed his sin of self-exaltation.
991. 7.26.4The Archon's confession fulfilled the psalm; then the gospel had to go on to the Hebdomad.
992. 7.26.5The light passed to the son of the second Archon, who preached to his father, and he too feared and confessed.
993. 7.26.6Basilides' followers speak of 365 heavens ruled by Abrasax, whose name adds up to the days of the year.
994. 7.26.7Next the mystery had to be revealed to the third Sonship left below in the formless world, as Paul speaks of revelation and unspeakable words.
995. 7.26.8The light came down through the Hebdomad onto Jesus, son of Mary, and enlightened him.
996. 7.26.9Basilides reads the angel's words to Mary as the descent of the light through the heavens.
997. 7.26.10The world lasts until the whole third Sonship follows Jesus, is purified, and rises like the first.
998. 7.27.1When the whole Sonship has ascended, God will bring a great ignorance on the world, so that nothing desires what is beyond its nature.
999. 7.27.2Souls below will know nothing higher, so that they are not tormented by impossible longings, like a fish wanting to graze with sheep.
1000. 7.27.3Things stay incorruptible in their own place; ignorance will spare the lower Archon grief and sighing.
1001. 7.27.4Ignorance will also seize the great Archon, and all things will be restored to their natural places in their own seasons.
1002. 7.27.5Basilides cites “my hour has not yet come” and the Magi's star to show that even Jesus was under appointed times and stars.
1003. 7.27.6Jesus is the spiritual inner man within the psychic one, clothed with his own soul.
1004. 7.27.7For Basilides the gospel is the knowledge of the realities above the world, which made the great Archon rejoice.
1005. 7.27.8Jesus' life happened as the Gospels say, so that he might be the first fruits of sorting out what was mixed together.
1006. 7.27.9Because the world has three levels, the mixed elements had to be sorted out by dividing Jesus.
1007. 7.27.10At the passion each part of Jesus returned to its own level: body to the formless, soul to the Hebdomad, and higher parts to the great Archon and the boundary Spirit.
1008. 7.27.11Through Jesus the third Sonship was purified and ascended; their whole system is mixing, sorting, and restoring.
1009. 7.27.12The passion served only to sort out the mixture; the whole Sonship must be sorted as Jesus was.
1010. 7.27.13Hippolytus ends his account of Basilides, who he says learned it in Egypt.
1011. 7.28.1Saturnilus of Antioch taught one unknown Father who made the angels and powers.
1012. 7.28.2Seven angels made the world and, seeing a luminous image from above, tried to make a human being after it.
1013. 7.28.3The angels' man writhed like a worm until the higher power, pitying its likeness, sent a spark of life.
1014. 7.28.4At death the spark returns above; Saturnilus held that the Savior only appeared to be a man.
1015. 7.28.5Saturnilus made the God of the Jews one of the angels, whom Christ came to overthrow while saving those with the spark of life.
1016. 7.28.6Saturnilus taught two races of humans, evil and good, and that the Savior came to destroy the evil and save the good.
1017. 7.28.7Saturnilus said marriage and procreation come from Satan, and his followers abstained from meat; prophecies came partly from the world-making angels and partly from Satan.
1018. 7.29.1Marcion of Pontus taught two principles, one good and one evil, and founded a school of harsh Cynic living.
1019. 7.29.2Hippolytus claims Marcion took his two principles from Empedocles' Strife and Love.
1020. 7.29.3Hippolytus will again summarize Empedocles to compare him with Marcion.
1021. 7.29.4Empedocles names six elements: earth and water, fire and air, and the shaping powers Strife and Love, and he calls the four roots by gods' names.
1022. 7.29.5Hippolytus explains the four names: Zeus is fire, Hera earth, Aidoneus air, and Nestis water.
1023. 7.29.6Water is called Nestis (“fasting”) because it carries food but cannot nourish by itself.
1024. 7.29.7Summary of Empedocles' six principles: water and earth, fire and air, Strife and Love.
1025. 7.29.8Love makes the world one; Strife tears it into many.
1026. 7.29.9Destructive Strife makes the created world; Love leads things out of it and restores them to the One.
1027. 7.29.10Empedocles holds Strife and Love to be eternal and unbegotten, while the four elements die and come back to life.
1028. 7.29.11When the elements die, Love gathers them back into the unified whole.
1029. 7.29.12Strife in turn tears the unity apart into the elements, animals, plants, and the visible world.
1030. 7.29.13Empedocles describes the world under Love as a perfect sphere without limbs.
1031. 7.29.14Empedocles calls himself an exile from God, torn by Strife from the original unity.
1032. 7.29.15Empedocles calls the maker of this world “raging Strife.”
1033. 7.29.16Empedocles says souls, immortal “spirits,” are condemned for sin to exile by Strife.
1034. 7.29.17Souls wander for thirty thousand seasons, born in every mortal form, which Empedocles calls life's painful paths.
1035. 7.29.18Hippolytus explains this as the transmigration of souls from body to body as punishment.
1036. 7.29.19Empedocles describes souls tossed from ether to sea to earth to sun and back, hated by all.
1037. 7.29.20Like a smith plunging iron from fire into water, the Demiurge moves souls through the elements.
1038. 7.29.21Love, pitying the tormented souls, labors to lead them out of the world and back to the One.
1039. 7.29.22Empedocles taught his followers to abstain from meat, as housing punished souls, and from sexual intercourse, which serves Strife.
1040. 7.29.23Empedocles calls the alternation of Strife and Love an ancient decree of Necessity.
1041. 7.29.24Strife always wrongs and seizes; Love always calls back and reunites.
1042. 7.29.25This is Empedocles' account of the world's origin and end from good and evil.
1043. 7.29.26Empedocles speaks of a third, intelligible power: teachings held with pure attention stay and grow, and all things have understanding.
1044. 7.30.1Hippolytus says Marcion's contrast of good and evil gods comes not from Paul or Mark but from Empedocles of Sicily.
1045. 7.30.2Hippolytus addresses Marcion directly: calling the Creator evil is teaching Empedocles to the church.
1046. 7.30.3Marcion's good God is Empedocles' Love, and his ban on marriage and foods is Empedocles' purifications.
1047. 7.30.4Marcion forbids meat and dissolves marriages joined by God, following Empedocles' view that marriage divides the One.
1048. 7.31.1Hippolytus turns to a newer Marcionite, Prepon the Assyrian, who wrote against Bardesanes.
1049. 7.31.2Prepon added a third, just principle between good and evil, but this too came from Empedocles.
1050. 7.31.3Empedocles placed a just reason between Strife and Love, reuniting what Strife divides.
1051. 7.31.4Empedocles calls the just reason the Muse and invokes Calliope.
1052. 7.31.5Marcion denied Christ's birth, saying he came down from heaven in Tiberius's fifteenth year and taught in the synagogues.
1053. 7.31.6Prepon's Jesus came down unborn, free from both evil and good, as a middle being, citing “Why do you call me good?”
1054. 7.31.7The quotation continues: “One is good.”
1055. 7.31.8Hippolytus closes his refutation of Marcion as a borrower from Empedocles and turns to Carpocrates.
1056. 7.32.1Carpocrates taught that angels made the world and that Jesus, son of Joseph, received power from above because his pure soul remembered what it had seen with God.
1057. 7.32.2Jesus' soul, trained in Jewish customs, despised them and so received powers to overcome the passions.
1058. 7.32.3Carpocratians claim that anyone who despises the world-rulers as Jesus did gets the same power, and some think themselves superior even to the apostles.
1059. 7.32.4They claim their souls come from above and could even surpass Jesus by despising the world more.
1060. 7.32.5The Carpocratians practice magic, claiming power over the world's rulers and all their works.
1061. 7.32.6Hippolytus says Satan used such sects to bring the church into disrepute among pagans.
1062. 7.32.7Carpocratians teach reincarnation until a soul has committed every sin, after which all souls are freed and saved.
1063. 7.32.8Some souls finish all sins in one life; the sect brands its disciples' ears and keeps portraits of Christ said to be made by Pilate.
1064. 7.33.1Cerinthus taught that a lower power made the world and that Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary.
1065. 7.33.2For Cerinthus the Christ descended on Jesus at his baptism and left him before the passion.
1066. 7.34.1The Ebionites accept the true God as creator but share Cerinthus's view of Christ.
1067. 7.34.2The Ebionites keep the Jewish law, saying Jesus became Christ by keeping it perfectly and that they too can become Christs.
1068. 7.35.1Theodotus of Byzantium agreed with the church on creation but took his view of Christ from the Gnostics, Cerinthus, and Ebion.
1069. 7.35.2Theodotus held that Jesus, a man born of a virgin, received the Christ-Spirit at his baptism; his followers differed on whether he ever became God.
1070. 7.36.1Theodotus the banker taught that Melchizedek is a great power, greater than Christ, who was made in his image.
1071. 7.36.2Hippolytus will not list the many Gnostic opinions, which he thinks less reverent than the Greek philosophers.
1072. 7.36.3Hippolytus blames Nicolaus, one of the seven deacons, whose followers John rebuked in Revelation for sexual immorality and eating idol sacrifices.
1073. 7.37.1Cerdo taught that the just God of Moses and the prophets is not the unknown, good Father of Jesus Christ.
1074. 7.37.2Marcion built on Cerdo's teaching in his Antitheses, and his disciple Lucian did the same.
1075. 7.38.1Apelles taught a good God, a just creator, a fiery God who spoke to Moses, and a fourth cause of evil, called angels.
1076. 7.38.2Apelles rejected the Law and Prophets, picked from the Gospels and Paul, and followed the prophetess Philumene.
1077. 7.38.3Apelles said Christ was not born of a virgin but made himself a real body from the elements.
1078. 7.38.4Christ died, rose after three days, and showed the disciples his wounds to prove he was not a phantom.
1079. 7.38.5Apelles said Christ returned his body to the elements and went to the good Father, leaving the seed of life through the disciples.
1080. 7.38.6Hippolytus turns next to the Docetae.
1081. 8.1.1Heading for the table of contents of Book 8.
1082. 8.2.1Contents: the Docetae and their debt to natural philosophy.
1083. 8.3.1Contents: Monoimus and his reliance on poets and mathematicians.
1084. 8.4.1Contents: Tatian and Hermogenes.
1085. 8.5.1Contents: the Quartodecimans, who kept Easter on the fourteenth of Nisan.
1086. 8.6.1Contents: the Montanists (“Phrygians”) and their prophets.
1087. 8.7.1Contents: the Encratites, whose teaching is not from Scripture.
1088. 8.8.1Hippolytus introduces Book 8 with the Lord's saying about the beam and the speck.
1089. 8.8.2Hippolytus begins his account of the Docetae, who named themselves from “seeming.”
1090. 8.8.3The Docetae liken the first God to a fig seed, tiny yet infinite, and read the Gospel fig tree story in that light.
1091. 8.8.4As a fig tree puts out branches, leaves, and fruit full of seed, so the world came into being.
1092. 8.8.5Like trunk, leaves, and fruit, three Aeons came from the first God, which the Docetae find in the three words of Deuteronomy.
1093. 8.8.6God added nothing to the three Aeons, which supply all things and grew to perfection, while he remains apart.
1094. 8.8.7The three Aeons, each perfected as ten, make thirty; they differ only by position and hence in power.
1095. 8.9.1The Docetae find the three Aeons in the hundredfold, sixtyfold, and thirtyfold of the parable of the sower.
1096. 8.9.2All the Aeons together begot from the virgin Mary a common offspring, the Savior, equal to the first seed except that he is begotten.
1097. 8.9.3The intelligible world, perfected, was a light full of forms that shone down into the chaos below.
1098. 8.9.4Seeing its forms caught in the darkness below, the third Aeon set a firmament under the Aeons.
1099. 8.9.5The Docetae read Genesis 1 as the third Aeon separating light above from darkness below.
1100. 8.9.6The impress of the third Aeon in the darkness became a living fire, the great Archon of whom Genesis speaks.
1101. 8.9.7The Archon is the fiery God who spoke from the bush, which they interpret as the dark air through which the forms passed.
1102. 8.9.8Speech, smells, and colors all reach us through the air, the “bush.”
1103. 8.10.1The fiery God made the world; until the Savior came, the souls, “cooled” from above, passed from body to body under his guard.
1104. 8.10.2The Docetae cite Job and Jesus' words about Elijah for transmigration, which they say ended with the Savior.
1105. 8.10.3The only-begotten Son contracted his greatness into a small body, like the light of the eye that reaches the stars yet hides under the eyelids.
1106. 8.10.4We see only the coverings of the eye, not the light of sight itself.
1107. 8.10.5Clothed in the thirty Aeons, the only-begotten entered the world hidden, unknown, and disbelieved.
1108. 8.10.6To put on flesh, the “outer darkness,” he was announced to Mary by an angel and born of her.
1109. 8.10.7At his baptism Jesus received a copy of his body in the water, so that at the cross his soul, stripping off the flesh, would not be found naked.
1110. 8.10.8The Docetae read John 3:5–6 as the water-body of baptism, and Jesus' thirty years as the thirty Aeons.
1111. 8.10.9Each soul, from one of the thirty Aeons, can know only the aspect of Jesus that matches its own origin.
1112. 8.10.10This is why the sects quarrel over Jesus: each sees only the aspect of him akin to itself and thinks it the only one.
1113. 8.10.11The Docetae claim that they alone, coming from the highest realms, know the whole Jesus; others know only in part.
1114. 8.11.1Hippolytus ends his account of the Docetae with a pun on their name and the beam in the eye.
1115. 8.11.2The Docetae's teaching was anticipated by the Greek sophists; next comes Monoimus.
1116. 8.12.1Monoimus the Arab made Man what Homer made Ocean.
1117. 8.12.2Monoimus taught that Man is the eternal first principle of all things, and the Son of Man is begotten and passible.
1118. 8.12.3Monoimus: the Son came from the Man faster than thought or will.
1119. 8.12.4Monoimus reads “he was and came to be” as the Man and his Son, like fire and its light.
1120. 8.12.5Monoimus's Man is a monad that unites all opposites like a musical harmony, both mother and father.
1121. 8.12.6The perfect Man is imaged by the single stroke of the letter iota, simple yet containing multiplicity.
1122. 8.12.7The one stroke of the iota is the image of the invisible perfect Man.
1123. 8.13.1The iota, whose number value is ten, contains all the numbers from one to ten.
1124. 8.13.2Monoimus reads Colossians' “all the fullness dwelling bodily” as the numbers contained in the iota.
1125. 8.13.3The Son of Man, unknown to all, is wrongly imagined by creation as born of a woman; his faint rays sustain the world.
1126. 8.13.4Everything in the world came from only a part of the Son of Man, who is the single iota flowing from above.
1127. 8.14.1The six days of creation are six powers in the iota, and the Sabbath comes from the seventh.
1128. 8.14.2The geometric solids that make up the elements come from the numbers in the iota, the perfect Son.
1129. 8.14.3Moses' rod, which brought ten plagues, is the one stroke of the iota, and the plagues symbolize creation.
1130. 8.14.4Everything is produced by a “stroke,” as vines by pruning and a man from a man; the Ten Commandments allegorize the one stroke.
1131. 8.14.5All knowledge is the ten plagues and ten commandments; even the five books of the Law come from the number five in the iota.
1132. 8.14.6The Passover, chosen on the tenth day and kept on the fourteenth, is read as a number mystery of the iota.
1133. 8.14.7The seven days of unleavened bread mean that creation needs no outside “leaven”; the whole world is the Lord's Passover.
1134. 8.14.8The plagues show God rejoicing in the changes of creation; the locusts eating grass mean elements turned into flesh, for “all flesh is grass.”
1135. 8.14.9Hippolytus suggests Monoimus's ten-fold reading of the law comes from Aristotle's ten categories.
1136. 8.15.1Monoimus wrote to Theophrastus: stop seeking God outside and seek him within yourself.
1137. 8.15.2By examining one's own mind and involuntary feelings, Monoimus says, one finds God within, one and many.
1138. 8.15.3Monoimus's teaching comes from Pythagorean geometry and arithmetic; Hippolytus moves on.
1139. 8.16.1Tatian, Justin's disciple, taught invisible Aeons, called marriage corruption, and denied Adam's salvation.
1140. 8.17.1Hermogenes taught that God made everything out of eternal, unbegotten matter.
1141. 8.17.2Hermogenes said God tamed part of seething matter into the world and left the rest wild, an idea Hippolytus traces to Plato.
1142. 8.17.3Hermogenes confessed Christ's virgin birth and resurrection but said at the ascension he left his body in the sun.
1143. 8.17.4Hermogenes supported his view with Psalm 19's “in the sun he set his tent.”
1144. 8.18.1The Quartodecimans insist on keeping Easter on the fourteenth of Nisan, fearing the law's curse, not seeing that the true Passover is now kept by faith.
1145. 8.18.2They ignore Paul's warning that keeping one part of the law obliges one to keep it all; otherwise they agree with the church.
1146. 8.19.1The Phrygians (Montanists) follow Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla as prophets of the Paraclete and claim to learn more from their books than from Scripture.
1147. 8.19.2The Montanists exalt their prophetesses above the apostles; orthodox on God and Christ, they add new fasts and dietary rules.
1148. 8.19.3Some Montanists side with the Noetians, saying the Father himself is the Son who was born and died.
1149. 8.19.4The Montanists' many books are worthless and should be ignored by the sound-minded.
1150. 8.20.1The Encratites, orthodox about God and Christ, abstain from meat and wine and forbid marriage, more like Cynics than Christians.
1151. 8.20.2Paul foretold those who would forbid marriage and certain foods, which God created good.
1152. 8.20.3Paul's words suffice to show that Encratism is a heresy; lesser sects like the Cainites and Ophites are not worth describing.
1153. 8.20.4Hippolytus turns to the Noetian heresy, which he calls the cause of all evils.
1154. 9.1.1Heading for the table of contents of Book 9.
1155. 9.2.1Contents: Noetus followed Heraclitus, not Christ.
1156. 9.3.1Contents: Callistus and his new heresy, and his life.
1157. 9.4.1Contents: Elchasai, who claims to keep the law but practices Gnosticism, astrology, and magic.
1158. 9.5.1Contents: Jewish customs and sects.
1159. 9.6.1Hippolytus now faces the greatest task: refuting the heresies of his own day, which have troubled the church everywhere.
1160. 9.7.1Noetus of Smyrna founded a heresy from Heraclitus; his disciple Epigonus brought it to Rome.
1161. 9.7.2Cleomenes spread the teaching in Rome under Bishop Zephyrinus, whom Hippolytus calls ignorant and greedy, with Callistus as his adviser.
1162. 9.7.3Hippolytus says he repeatedly forced Zephyrinus and Callistus to confess the truth, but they soon fell back.
1163. 9.8.1Hippolytus will set out Heraclitus's views to show that the Noetians' doctrines are his, not Christ's.
1164. 9.8.2Though Heraclitus was covered in the earlier Philosophumena, Hippolytus presents him again for a closer comparison.
1165. 9.9.1Heraclitus calls the All both divisible and indivisible, generated and ungenerated, and Father and Son.
1166. 9.9.2Heraclitus says the wise agree that all is one, and that opposites fit together like the tension of a bow or lyre.
1167. 9.9.3Heraclitus says the eternal Logos governs all things, yet people fail to understand it.
1168. 9.9.4Heraclitus calls time a child at play who is king, and war the father and king of all.
1169. 9.9.5Heraclitus prizes the unseen harmony above the visible, yet also prefers what can be seen, heard, and learned.
1170. 9.9.6Heraclitus tells of Homer fooled by boys' riddle about lice to show how people are deceived about visible things.
1171. 9.10.1Hippolytus concludes that Heraclitus treats visible and invisible as one.
1172. 9.10.2Heraclitus holds light and darkness, good and evil to be one, and mocks Hesiod for separating day and night.
1173. 9.10.3Heraclitus: doctors who cut and burn the sick show that good and harm are the same.
1174. 9.10.4Heraclitus says straight and crooked, up and down are the same, like the fuller's screw.
1175. 9.10.5Heraclitus: seawater is both life-giving for fish and deadly for people.
1176. 9.10.6Heraclitus calls mortals and immortals one, and Hippolytus reads him as speaking of a bodily resurrection caused by God.
1177. 9.10.7Heraclitus teaches that an intelligent fire steers all things and will judge the world in a conflagration.
1178. 9.10.8Heraclitus says God is all opposites together, day and night, war and peace, which Hippolytus says is the root of Noetus's view.
1179. 9.10.9Whether or not they read Heraclitus, Noetus's followers teach the same thing.
1180. 9.10.10The Noetians say one God is invisible and visible, unbegotten and begotten, immortal and mortal, just as Heraclitus paired opposites.
1181. 9.10.11Noetus taught that the Father, by being born, became his own Son, so that Father and Son are one person under two names at different times.
1182. 9.10.12Cleomenes and his followers say that the one crucified, buried, and raised is himself the God and Father of all.
1183. 9.11.1Hippolytus says Callistus, hungry for the episcopate, manipulated the unlearned Bishop Zephyrinus and played both sides, telling each he agreed with them.
1184. 9.11.2Sabellius listened to Hippolytus but was swayed by Callistus in private, only later seeing through him.
1185. 9.11.3Callistus had Zephyrinus make ambiguous public statements; when Hippolytus resisted, Callistus called his party “worshippers of two gods.”
1186. 9.11.4Hippolytus will tell the life of Callistus, who became a “martyr” under the prefect Fuscianus.
1187. 9.12.1Callistus, a Christian slave of Carpophorus, ran a bank in Rome and lost the deposits of widows and fellow Christians.
1188. 9.12.2Fearing his master, Callistus fled to the harbor at Portus and boarded a ship, but Carpophorus was told.
1189. 9.12.3Seeing his master coming, Callistus threw himself into the sea.
1190. 9.12.4Rescued by sailors, Callistus was returned to Rome and sent to the treadmill.
1191. 9.12.5Fellow Christians asked Carpophorus to release Callistus, who claimed money was owed to him.
1192. 9.12.6Concerned for the depositors, Carpophorus agreed to release him.
1193. 9.12.7Unable to repay, Callistus sought death by disrupting a synagogue service, and the Jews dragged him before the prefect.
1194. 9.12.8The Jews complained that Callistus, claiming to be a Christian, had disrupted their lawful worship.
1195. 9.12.9Carpophorus said Callistus was no Christian but a debtor; the prefect, pressed by the Jews, had him flogged and sent to the Sardinian mines.
1196. 9.12.10Marcia, Commodus's Christian-leaning concubine, asked Bishop Victor for the names of the confessors in Sardinia; he left out Callistus.
1197. 9.12.11Marcia obtained a release, and the presbyter Hyacinthus freed the confessors in Sardinia except Callistus.
1198. 9.12.12Callistus begged, and Hyacinthus persuaded the governor to release him too.
1199. 9.12.13Victor, displeased but merciful, sent Callistus to live at Antium on a monthly allowance.
1200. 9.12.14Zephyrinus recalled Callistus, put him in charge of the cemetery, and fell under his influence.
1201. 9.12.15Once bishop, Callistus expelled Sabellius to clear himself of suspicion, but Hippolytus calls him a charlatan.
1202. 9.12.16Callistus devised a new teaching: the Word is the Son, and the same is called Father, one indivisible Spirit.
1203. 9.12.17Callistus said Father and Son are one and the same, and that the Spirit incarnate in the virgin is the Father, citing John 14:10.
1204. 9.12.18For Callistus the visible man is the Son and the Spirit in him is the Father; they are one God and one person, so the Father co-suffered with the Son.
1205. 9.12.19Hippolytus says Callistus avoids saying the Father suffered but wavers between Sabellius and Theodotus.
1206. 9.12.20Hippolytus charges that Callistus founded a rival school and was lax, promising forgiveness to any sinner who joined him.
1207. 9.12.21Hippolytus says Callistus's rule drew people with bad consciences and excommunicates, and that he refused to depose bishops even for mortal sin.
1208. 9.12.22Hippolytus complains that under Callistus men married more than once were ordained, and clergy who married after ordination kept their office, justified by Rom 14:4 and the parable of the weeds.
1209. 9.12.23Callistus likened the church to Noah's ark, with clean and unclean animals together, and crowds flocked to him.
1210. 9.12.24Hippolytus charges that Callistus allowed unmarried women of rank to take a slave or free man as a partner, regarded as a husband without legal marriage.
1211. 9.12.25Hippolytus says that as a result some Christian women used contraceptives and procured abortions, and he calls Callistus's teaching adultery and murder.
1212. 9.12.26Under Callistus a second baptism was introduced, and his community, which admitted all to communion, took the name Callistians.
1213. 9.13.1Alcibiades of Apamea came to Rome with a book said to have been received by a righteous man, Elchasai, from the Seres of Parthia.
1214. 9.13.2The book was said to have been revealed by a gigantic angel, whose measurements Hippolytus reports.
1215. 9.13.3A female figure of the same size accompanies the angel; the male is the Son of God, the female the Holy Spirit.
1216. 9.13.4The book proclaimed a new forgiveness of sins through a further baptism, dated to Trajan's third year (about AD 100), which Hippolytus links to Callistus's laxity.
1217. 9.13.5Hippolytus says he opposed Alcibiades as a wolf among the sheep that Callistus had scattered.
1218. 9.13.6Hippolytus will expose Alcibiades's pretended asceticism and quote his writings.
1219. 9.14.1The Elchasaites require circumcision and the law, and teach that Christ is an ordinary man reborn many times.
1220. 9.14.2They claim foreknowledge by Pythagorean number-lore.
1221. 9.14.3The Elchasaites practice astrology, magic, and incantations for dog-bites and demon possession.
1222. 9.15.1The book of Elchasai offers a second baptism for forgiveness to anyone guilty of sexual sins, once they hear the book.
1223. 9.15.2The baptized must call seven witnesses, heaven, water, holy spirits, angels of prayer, oil, salt, and earth; Hippolytus mocks these “mysteries.”
1224. 9.15.3The book calls adulterers and false prophets to a second baptism in their clothes.
1225. 9.15.4For a rabid dog's bite the book prescribes immediate immersion in a river or spring, fully clothed.
1226. 9.15.5The bitten person prays and invokes the seven witnesses.
1227. 9.15.6He vows before the seven witnesses to avoid sin and is baptized in his clothes.
1228. 9.16.1The book prescribes repeated cold baths for the sick and possessed, and teaches that some stars are evil.
1229. 9.16.2The book warns against beginning work or baptizing on days ruled by evil stars.
1230. 9.16.3Wait until the moon leaves the evil stars before baptizing; and keep the Sabbath.
1231. 9.16.4The book forbids starting anything on Tuesday and foretells a war of evil northern angels three years after Trajan's conquest of Parthia.
1232. 9.17.1The book tells its readers to keep its secrets like costly pearls.
1233. 9.17.2Hippolytus mocks the book's wisdom as greater than anything the Greek sages learned in Egypt.
1234. 9.17.3Having covered the heresies, Hippolytus will describe the Jewish sects so as to leave nothing out.
1235. 9.17.4After the Jewish sects, Hippolytus will set out the true doctrine.
1236. 9.18.1The Jews had one law from one teacher, Moses, but after entering the land they split into sects.
1237. 9.18.2The three chief Jewish sects are the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.
1238. 9.18.3The Essenes live in self-control and mutual love, abstain from marriage themselves without forbidding it, and adopt others' children.
1239. 9.19.1The Essenes share all property; newcomers sell their goods for a common fund distributed by need.
1240. 9.19.2No Essene is in want; they avoid oil, elect stewards, and always dress in white.
1241. 9.20.1Essenes live in many towns and welcome traveling members as family; they travel carrying only a weapon.
1242. 9.20.2Each town has an Essene steward; they own no spare clothing and exchange goods freely without buying or selling.
1243. 9.21.1Essenes pray and sing hymns before speaking at dawn, then work until the fifth hour.
1244. 9.21.2At midday they bathe in cold water and eat together in a room closed to outsiders.
1245. 9.21.3They eat bread and one dish in silence, with blessing and hymns before and after.
1246. 9.21.4They change out of their sacred linen and return to work until the evening meal.
1247. 9.21.5Their meals are quiet and orderly, and they are always sober and moderate.
1248. 9.22.1Essenes obey their leader, show mercy, avoid anger, and refuse oaths, since their word is stronger than an oath.
1249. 9.22.2They study the Law, the Prophets, and other writings, and are keen on the healing powers of herbs and stones.
1250. 9.23.1Candidates are tested for a year outside the community, receiving a hatchet, a loincloth, and a white robe.
1251. 9.23.2After the first year the candidate is tested two more years before full admission.
1252. 9.23.3The initiate swears to revere God, wrong no one, hate no one but pray for enemies, and be faithful to rulers, since authority comes from God.
1253. 9.23.4He also swears to rule humbly, love truth, not steal, keep nothing from members and reveal nothing to outsiders, and pass on the teachings unchanged.
1254. 9.24.1A member convicted of sin is expelled and, bound by his oaths, may starve, though they sometimes take pity at the last.
1255. 9.25.1Essene courts of a hundred are strict and final; they honor Moses next to God and defer to elders and the majority.
1256. 9.25.2They keep the Sabbath more strictly than all other Jews, not even moving a vessel.
1257. 9.25.3They bury their excrement with a small trowel in secluded places and then wash.
1258. 9.26.1The Essenes split into four groups; the strictest will not carry coins or pass under statues at city gates.
1259. 9.26.2Another group forcibly circumcises or kills Gentiles who speak of God's law, called Zealots or Sicarii; others call no one lord but God.
1260. 9.26.3Later members are less strict; many Essenes live past a hundred, face death gladly, and endure torture rather than blaspheme the law or eat idol-food.
1261. 9.27.1Hippolytus says the Essenes believe in the resurrection of the flesh and a bright resting place for souls until the judgment.
1262. 9.27.2Hippolytus claims the Greeks borrowed from the Jews, whose religion is older than that of all nations.
1263. 9.27.3Pythagoras and the Stoics learned from them; the Essenes expect judgment, a world-burning, and eternal punishment, and practice prophecy.
1264. 9.28.1Another order of Essenes marries, holding that renouncing marriage would end the human race.
1265. 9.28.2These Essenes test brides for fertility, abstain during pregnancy to show they marry for children, and their women also bathe in linen.
1266. 9.28.3The Pharisees are the largest group, found everywhere; all are Jews but named by their distinct views.
1267. 9.28.4The Pharisees keep the ancient tradition, debate purity, and train teachers of the law.
1268. 9.28.5The Pharisees hold both fate and free will under God's will, and believe in bodily resurrection, judgment, and eternal punishment.
1269. 9.29.1The Sadducees deny fate and say that humans choose good or evil freely.
1270. 9.29.2The Sadducees deny resurrection and the survival of the soul, saying one lives on only in one's children.
1271. 9.29.3For the Sadducees, whatever one gains in this life is profit and God does not concern himself with individuals; Pharisees love one another, Sadducees themselves.
1272. 9.29.4The Sadducees, strong around Samaria, keep only the law of Moses without interpretation and reject the prophets.
1273. 9.30.1Hippolytus describes the fourfold Jewish religion: theology, natural philosophy, ethics, and worship.
1274. 9.30.2The Jews confess one God who created all things from nothing by his will, and angels made to serve creation.
1275. 9.30.3Their laws produce a dignified and temperate life, admirable to any reader.
1276. 9.30.4Jewish worship offered first fruits to God with order and reverence; the Sadducees deny angels and spirits.
1277. 9.30.5All Jews await the Christ foretold by the prophets, but because they failed to recognize him and killed him, they still expect him.
1278. 9.30.6They say the Christ who came is not the one, and await another, misreading some of the prophecies.
1279. 9.30.7They expect a Messiah of David's line born naturally, a warrior-king who will gather Israel and restore Jerusalem.
1280. 9.30.8They expect this Messiah to fall in battle, followed by the end of the world, the resurrection, and judgment according to deeds.
1281. 9.31.1Hippolytus concludes that he has set out all doctrines of Greeks and barbarians and shown the heretics' borrowings.
1282. 9.31.2After nine books of refutation, Hippolytus will set out the doctrine of the truth in the tenth, so that readers may be saved.
1283. 10.1.1Heading for the table of contents of Book 10.
1284. 10.2.1Contents: summary of the philosophers.
1285. 10.3.1Contents: summary of the heresies.
1286. 10.4.1Contents: the doctrine of the truth.
1287. 10.5.1Hippolytus turns to the truth, which owes nothing to Greek, Egyptian, Chaldean, or Babylonian lore and refutes error simply by appearing.
1288. 10.5.2Although he has often set out the rule of truth elsewhere, Hippolytus will do so again here as the crown of the work.
1289. 10.6.1After four books on the Greeks and five on the heresies, Hippolytus summarizes: Greek philosophy is natural, ethical, and dialectical.
1290. 10.6.2Natural philosophers derived everything from one principle (with or without quality: fire, air, water, earth) or from many.
1291. 10.6.3Those who posited many principles differed on number and kind.
1292. 10.6.4The Stoics derived everything from qualityless matter; others from fire (Hippasus, Heraclitus), air, water (Thales), or earth (Xenophanes).
1293. 10.7.1Homer makes earth and water the two principles.
1294. 10.7.3Empedocles names four roots of all things.
1295. 10.7.4Ocellus and Aristotle add a fifth, heavenly element; Empedocles' followers posit more.
1296. 10.7.5Empedocles has four material and two active principles; Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Epicurus derived all from infinitely many.
1297. 10.7.6Anaxagoras posited like particles, Democritus and Epicurus atoms, Heraclides and Asclepiades loose masses, and Plato God, matter, and pattern.
1298. 10.7.7Plato divides matter into the four elements, with God as maker and mind as pattern.
1299. 10.8.1Since the philosophers' physics fails, Hippolytus will summarize the heresies and then set out the truth.
1300. 10.9.1Summary of the Naassenes: the first principle is Man, also Son of Man, divided into intellectual, psychic, and earthly parts.
1301. 10.9.2They call Man Adamas; all three natures came together in Jesus, who spoke to the three kinds of people.
1302. 10.9.3The Naassenes teach three races and three churches, elect, called, and captive, and falsely claim the teaching came from James through Mariamne.
1303. 10.10.1Summary of the Peratae: one world divided in three, the first part a great spring divisible without end.
1304. 10.10.2The Peratae divide the world into an unbegotten Good, a self-begotten multitude of powers, and a begotten particular world, with three gods, words, minds, and men.
1305. 10.10.3In Herod's time a threefold Christ came down, containing the elements and powers of all three parts of the world.
1306. 10.10.4The Peratae cite Col 2:9 and say Christ came down to save what was divided into three.
1307. 10.10.5The two higher parts will be saved through Christ; the third, the particular world, will perish.
1308. 10.11.1Summary of the Sethians: three principles, each able to become all things as a child can learn any art.
1309. 10.11.2The Sethians' principles are light above, darkness below, and between them Spirit, like a subtle fragrance.
1310. 10.11.3Light shines down into darkness and the Spirit's fragrance spreads between, so that light and Spirit are both caught in the darkness below.
1311. 10.11.4The darkness, a fearful water, strives to keep the captured light and Spirit, knowing it would be powerless without them.
1312. 10.11.5Like the dark pupil of the eye lit by spirit, the darkness holds countless powers that shape all things like seals.
1313. 10.11.6From the meeting of the three principles came heaven and earth, shaped like a womb, and all other things are impressed in the same way.
1314. 10.11.7From the water came a violent wind, the first-born cause of all generation.
1315. 10.11.8The wind takes the form of a hissing serpent and drives the womb-like world to generate all things.
1316. 10.11.9The spark of light, trapped in the body and the waters, strives to escape and cries out, as the Sethians read the Psalms.
1317. 10.11.10The light above sends the perfect Word, who took the form of a serpent and entered the womb to rescue the spark of light.
1318. 10.11.11The Sethians read Phil 2:6–7, “the form of a slave,” as the serpent form taken by the Word.
1319. 10.12.1Summary of Simon Magus: an infinite power, fire, is the root of all, with a hidden and a manifest nature.
1320. 10.12.2The world came from the unbegotten fire through six roots in pairs: Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reasoning and Reflection.
1321. 10.12.3The infinite power, “He who stands, stood, and will stand,” if fully formed in the six powers, becomes one with the unbegotten power.
1322. 10.12.4If not formed, the power perishes like an untaught talent; Simon claimed to be this highest power himself.
1323. 10.13.1Summary of Valentinus: the first principle is the Father, called Depth, alone for some, with Silence as consort for others.
1324. 10.13.2Six emanations complete the first Ogdoad; beings are ranked as within the Pleroma, outside it, and outside Limit in the Deficiency.
1325. 10.13.3The Demiurge came from the Deficiency; Christ descended from the Pleroma to save the spirit dwelling in the inner man.
1326. 10.13.4The Valentinians deny the salvation of the flesh, calling it a “garment of skin.”
1327. 10.14.1Summary of Basilides: a non-existent God laid down a seed containing the whole world, like a mustard seed or peacock's egg.
1328. 10.14.2The seed contained a threefold Sonship of the same substance as God: fine, coarse, and needing purification.
1329. 10.14.3The fine Sonship rose at once to the non-existent God.
1330. 10.14.4The coarser Sonship rose using the Holy Spirit as wings.
1331. 10.14.5The third Sonship stayed in the seed-mass; the world and what is above it are divided by the boundary Spirit.
1332. 10.14.6The great Archon rose to the firmament and thought himself supreme, ignorant of the wiser Sonship left below.
1333. 10.14.7The Archon begot a son greater than himself, seated him at his right hand in the Ogdoad, and made the heavens.
1334. 10.14.8A second, lesser Archon, the Hebdomad, rules the lower world and also begot a wiser son.
1335. 10.14.9The power of the gospel came down through the sons of both Archons onto Jesus, son of Mary, to purify the Sonship left behind.
1336. 10.14.10Basilides' followers claim to be the sons who purify souls and will rise with the Sonship; the world lasts until all souls ascend.
1337. 10.15.1Summary of the Gnostic Justin: three principles, the Good, the Father Elohim, and a female principle.
1338. 10.15.2The female principle, Edem or Israel, is half virgin and half viper.
1339. 10.15.3Elohim and Edem produced twelve angels, some siding with the father and some with the mother.
1340. 10.15.4Animals came from Edem's beastly half and man from her upper half; Edem gave him a soul and Elohim a spirit.
1341. 10.15.5Elohim ascended to the Good and left Edem, who in anger plots against his spirit in humans; Baruch was sent through the prophets to rescue it.
1342. 10.15.6Justin makes Heracles a prophet overcome by Omphale, who is Babel or Aphrodite.
1343. 10.15.7Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, resisted Edem, who had him crucified; his spirit rose to the Good, and so will the spirits of Justin's followers.
1344. 10.16.1Summary of the Docetae: God is like a fig seed from which came three Aeons and then countless others.
1345. 10.16.2Together the Aeons begot from the virgin Mary the Savior, equal to the first seed except that he is begotten.
1346. 10.16.3The great light of the Aeons, full of forms, came down on the chaos and impressed the shapes of all things on it.
1347. 10.16.4The third Aeon made heaven to separate light from darkness.
1348. 10.16.5The impress of the third Aeon, living fire, became the great Archon, Moses' fiery God, who keeps putting forms into bodies.
1349. 10.16.6The Savior was born to show the captive souls the way of escape; clothed in the only-begotten power, he could not be seen in his glory.
1350. 10.17.1Summary of Monoimus: the first principle is Man and Son of Man, and the world came from a part of the Son of Man.
1351. 10.17.2The Son of Man is the iota, the number ten, source of all numbers and of the elements.
1352. 10.17.3The iota contains all; the six days of creation are six powers, and the geometric solids of the elements come from its numbers.
1353. 10.17.4Moses' rod and the ten plagues allegorize the iota.
1354. 10.17.5To know the whole, one must seek within oneself the one who says “my soul, my flesh, my mind.”
1355. 10.18.1Summary of Tatian: invisible Aeons, a Cynic life, and Marcion-like blasphemy and rules against marriage.
1356. 10.19.1Summary of Marcion and Cerdo: three principles, good, just, and matter; some add a fourth, evil.
1357. 10.19.2The Good made nothing; the Just (or evil) god made the world badly from matter.
1358. 10.19.3Marcion cites “a good tree cannot bear bad fruit” against the Creator and holds that Christ, son of the Good, only seemed to have flesh, birth, and suffering.
1359. 10.19.4Marcion denies the resurrection of the flesh and calls marriage corruption, to spite the Creator.
1360. 10.20.1Summary of Apelles: four gods, the good God, the creator, the fiery one, and an evil one, with Christ as a fifth.
1361. 10.20.2Apelles followed Philumene's Revelations, said Christ's flesh came from the world's elements, attacked the Law and Prophets, and denied the resurrection of the flesh.
1362. 10.21.1Summary of Cerinthus: an angelic power, ignorant of the highest God, made the world.
1363. 10.21.2For Cerinthus, Jesus was the natural son of Joseph and Mary, excelling in virtue.
1364. 10.21.3The Christ descended on Jesus at baptism and left him at the passion.
1365. 10.22.1Summary of the Ebionites: the true God made the world; they keep the law of Moses to be justified.
1366. 10.23.1Summary of Theodotus: God made all things; Christ was an ordinary man born of a virgin by God's will.
1367. 10.23.2Theodotus held that the Christ descended at baptism and that Christ is not God.
1368. 10.24.1The Melchizedekians agree with Theodotus but make Melchizedek a supreme power and Christ his image.
1369. 10.25.1Summary of the Montanists: orthodox on creation and Christ, but they prefer their prophets to the Gospels and impose new fasts.
1370. 10.26.1Some Montanists follow Noetus, saying the Father of all is himself the Son, visible and invisible, mortal and immortal.
1371. 10.27.1Summary of Noetus: the one Father and God of all made everything and was invisible or visible as he willed.
1372. 10.27.2For Noetus the one God is invisible or visible, unbegotten or born, impassible or suffering, and is called Son at different times.
1373. 10.27.3Summary of Callistus: one God, Father and Son by name, one Spirit in substance; God is not other than the Word.
1374. 10.27.4Callistus called the Word one God who became flesh, the visible flesh being the Son and the indwelling God the Father.
1375. 10.28.1Summary of Hermogenes: God made everything from eternal matter.
1376. 10.29.1Summary of the Elchasaites, who compiled a strange book from all the heresies.
1377. 10.29.2They teach that the Christ above passes from body to body, now in Jesus, and will keep reappearing.
1378. 10.29.3The Elchasaites use incantations, baptisms invoking the elements, astrology, and magic.
1379. 10.30.1Abraham, at God's call, moves from Haran to Canaan, later called Palestine and Judea.
1380. 10.30.2Judea is named after Judah, Jacob's fourth son, from whom came the royal line.
1381. 10.30.3A chronology from Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, and Levi to Kohath, who went down to Egypt with Jacob.
1382. 10.30.4Abraham's line in Canaan and his ancestors back to Eber, from whom the Hebrews are named.
1383. 10.30.5Hippolytus refers to his other works where he listed the nations.
1384. 10.30.6The line runs back through Eber, Shelah, Cainan, and Arphaxad to Shem and Noah, in whose time came the worldwide flood unknown to other nations.
1385. 10.30.7Noah alone with his family survived the flood in the ark, whose remains are shown in Ararat; so the God-fearing race is older than all others.
1386. 10.31.1Hippolytus will show that the nations devoted to philosophy descend from later settlers.
1387. 10.31.2From Noah's three sons all nations descend, by the power of God's word “increase and multiply.”
1388. 10.31.3Ham's sons are the ancestors of the Canaanites, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Libyans.
1389. 10.31.4Since these nations descend from Noah, the God-fearing are older than all; the Greeks come from Javan, son of Japheth.
1390. 10.31.5If the philosophical nations are later than the God-fearing, all other nations are too.
1391. 10.31.6Hippolytus calls all nations to learn the truth about God and creation from the friends of God.
1392. 10.32.1The one God, alone from eternity with nothing beside him, made all things from nothing by his will, foreknowing all.
1393. 10.32.2God first made the elements, fire, air, water, earth, and composed creatures from one or more of them.
1394. 10.32.3Things made of one element are immortal; composites dissolve, and that dissolution is death.
1395. 10.32.4Hippolytus refers readers to his book On the Substance of the Universe for more.
1396. 10.32.5Not knowing these causes, the Greeks worshipped parts of creation instead of the Creator, and the heresiarchs built on their errors.
1397. 10.33.1The one God first begot the Word, not a spoken word but the inner reason of all things, from his own being.
1398. 10.33.2The Word, the Father's firstborn, carried the Father's will and ideas and made the world at his command.
1399. 10.33.3Creatures that reproduce were made male and female; those made for service were male only or neither.
1400. 10.33.4The elements themselves are neither male nor female and produce offspring only as God commands through the Word.
1401. 10.33.5Angels are made of fire and are not female.
1402. 10.33.6Sun and stars are from fire and air; water and earth brought forth male and female creatures as God willed through the Word.
1403. 10.33.7God made the human being from all the elements to rule creation; he made a man, not a god, but one who obeys him may become a god and be entrusted with greater things.
1404. 10.33.8The Word alone is from God himself and so is God; the world, made from nothing, is not God, and God made nothing evil.
1405. 10.33.9Humans were made with free will; evil is not a created thing but arises when a free being chooses it.
1406. 10.33.10The giving of the law proves human free will; God gave it through righteous men and finally through Moses.
1407. 10.33.11The Word, the Father's first-born, governs all things; righteous friends of God became prophets foretelling the future.
1408. 10.33.12The prophets spoke to all generations, recalling the past, rousing the present, and foretelling the future.
1409. 10.33.13Christian faith rests not on eloquence but on words spoken by divine power, through which the Word calls humans freely back from disobedience.
1410. 10.33.14In the last times the Father sent the Word himself, no longer through prophets or angels but visibly present.
1411. 10.33.15The Word took a body from the virgin and lived through every age of life, showing in his humanity that God made nothing evil and that humans are free.
1412. 10.33.16Christ's humanity is of the same stuff as ours; otherwise his command to imitate him would be unjust.
1413. 10.33.17Christ endured weariness, hunger, thirst, sleep, suffering, and death, and rose as the first fruits, so that suffering humans may hope for the same resurrection.
1414. 10.34.1Hippolytus appeals to all the nations of the world to come and learn the true doctrine.
1415. 10.34.2Knowing the true God, the hearers will escape the fire of judgment, dark Tartarus, the lake of Gehenna, the punishing angels, and the undying worm.
1416. 10.34.3Those who know God will receive an immortal body and soul, the kingdom of heaven, and a share as co-heirs with Christ.
1417. 10.34.4Hippolytus says the believer will be made divine, born immortal; truly knowing oneself means knowing one's Maker and being known by him.
1418. 10.34.5Hippolytus closes: Christ, the God over all, washes away sin and renews humanity; whoever obeys and imitates him will be made like him, a god by grace for his glory.