Book X of our text,3 admits, as has been said, Hippolytus'

claim to both episcopacy and martyrdom. But the passages in Theodoret which seem to show borrowing from Hippo- lytus, although possibly, are not necessarily from the work before us. The author of this tells us in Book I that he has " aforetime " 4 expounded the tenets of the heretics "within measure," and without revealing all their mysteries, and it might, therefore, be from some such earlier work that both Epiphanius and Theodoret have borrowed. Some writers, including Salmon,5 have thought that this earlier work of our author is to be found in the anonymous tractate Adversus Omnes Hcereses usually appended to Tertullian's
1 This is especially the case with the story of Callntus, as to which see II, pp. 124 ff. infra.
2 Haer. xxxi., p. 205, Oehler. 3 Haeret. fab. I, 17-24.
4 71-aAcu. 6 In D.C.B., art. cit. supra.
VOL. I. B
12 PHILOSOPHUMENA
works.1 Yet this tractate, which is extremely short, con- tains nothing that can be twisted into the words common to our text and to Theodoret, and we might, therefore, assert with confidence that it was from our text that Theodoret copied them but for the fact that he nowhere indicates their origin. This might be only another case of the unacknow- ledged borrowing much in fashion in his time, were it not that Theodoret has already spoken of Hippolytus in the eulogistic terms quoted above, and would therefore, one would think, have been glad to give as his informant such respectable authority. As he did not do so, we may per- haps accept the conclusion drawn by Cruice with much skill in a study published shortly after the appearance of Miller's text,2 and say with him that Theodoret did not know that the passages in question were to be found in any work of Hippolytus. In this case, as the statements in Book IX forbid us to suppose that our text was published anonymously or pseudonymously, the natural inference is that both Hippolytus and Theodoret drew from a common source.
What this source was likely to have been there can be little doubt. Our author speaks more than once of " the blessed elder Irenaeus," who has, he says, refuted the heretic Marcus with much vigour, and he implies that the energy and power displayed by Irenaeus in such matters have shortened his own work with regard to the Valentinian school generally.3 Photius, also, writing as has been said in the ninth century, mentions a work of Hippolytus against heresies admittedly owing much to Irenaeus'" instruction. The passage runs thus : —
"A booklet of Hippolytus has been read. Now Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus. But it (i.e. the booklet) was the compilation against 32 heresies making (the) Dositheans the beginning (of them) and comprising (those) up to Noetus and the Noetians. And he says that these heresies were subjected to
1 See Oehler's edition of Tertullian's works, IT, 75 1 fT. The parallel passages are set out in convenient form in Bishop Wordsworth's book before quoted.
* litudes sur de nouveaux documents historiques empruntis a Pouvrage recemmet deconvert des Philosophumena, Paris, 1853.
3 If, PP- 43, 47 infra.
INTRODUCTION 13
refutations by Irenceus in conversation1 (or in lectures). Of which refutations making also a synopsis, he says he compiled this book. The phrasing however is clear, reverent and unaffected, although he does not observe the Attic style. But he says some other things lacking in accuracy, and that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not by the Apostle Paul."
These words have been held by Salmon and others to describe the tractate Adversus Omnes Hcereses. Yet this tractate contains not thirty-two heresies, but twenty-seven, and begins with Simon Magus to end with the Praxeas against whom Tertullian wrote. It also notices another heretic named Blastus, who, like Praxeas, is mentioned neither by Irenoeus nor by our author, nor does it say anything about Noetus or the Apostle Paul. It does indeed mention at the outset " Dositheus the Samaritan," but only to say that the author proposes to keep silence concerning both him and the Jews, and "to turn to those who have wished to make heresy from the Gospel," the very first of whom, he says, is Simon Magus.2 As for refutations, the tractate contains nothing lesembling one, which has forced the supporters of the theory to assume that they were omitted for brevity's sake. Nor does it in the least agree with our text in its description of the tenets and practices of heresies which the two docu- ments treat of in common, such as Simon, Basilides, the Sethiani and others, and the differences are too great to be accounted for by supposing that the author of the later text was merely incorporating in it newer information.3
On the other hand, Photius' description agrees fairly well with our text, which contains thirty-one heresies all told, or thirty-two if we include, as the author asks us to do, that im- puted by him to Callistus. Of these, that of Noetus is the
1 S/j.i\ovvTos Elprfuatov. For the whole quotation, see Photius, Bibliotheca, 121 (Bekker's ed.).
2 Tertullian (Oehler's ed.), II, 751. St. Jerome in quoling this passage says the heretics have mangled the Gospel.
3 Thus the tractate makes Simon Magus call his Helena Sophia, and says that Basilides named his Supreme God Abraxas. It knows nothing of the God-who-isnot and the three Sonhoods of our text : and it gives an entirely different account of the Sethians, whom it calls Sethita?, and says that they identified Christ with Seth. In this heresy, too, it intro- duces Sophia, and makes her the author of the Flood.
14 PHILOSOPHUMENA
twenty-eighth, and is followed by those of the Elchesaites, Essenes, Pharisees and Sadducees only. These four last are all much earlier in date than any mentioned in the rest of the work, and three of them appeared to the author of the tractate last quoted as not heresies at all, while the fourth is not de- scribed by him, and there is no reason immediately apparent why in any case they should be put after and not before the post-Christian ones. The early part of the summary of Jewish beliefs in Book X is torn away, and may have contained a notice of Dositheus, whose name occurs in Eusebius and other writers,1 as a predecessor of Simon Magus and one who did not believe in the inspiration of the Jewish Prophets. The natural place in chronological order for these Jewish and Samaritan sects would, therefore, be at the head rather than at the tail of the list, and if we may venture to put them there and to restore to the catalogue the name of Dositheus, we should have our thirty-two heresies, beginning with Dositheus and ending with Noetus. We will return later to the reason why Photius should call our text a Biblidarion or " booklet."
Are there now any reasons for thinking that our text is founded on such a synopsis of lectures as Photius says Hippolytus made ? A fairly cogent one is the inconvenient and awkward division of the books, which often seem as if they had been arranged to occupy equal periods of time in delivery. Another is the unnecessary and tedious intro- ductions and recapitulations with which the descriptions of particular philosophies, charlatanic practices, and here- sies begin and end, and which seem as if they were only put in for the sake of arresting or holding the attention of an audience addressed verbally. Thus, in the account of Simon Magus' heresy, our author begins with a long-winded story of a Libyan who taught parrots to proclaim his own divinity, the only bearing of which upon the story of Simon is that Hippolytus asserts, like Justin Martyr, that Simon wished his followers to take him for the Supreme Being.2 So, too, he begins the succeeding book with the age-worn tale of Ulysses and the Sirens3 by way of introduction to the tenets of Basilides, with which it has no connection
1 Euseb., Hist. Eccles. IV, c. 22. He is quoting Hegesippus. See also Origen contra Celsum, VI, c. 11.
2 II, p. 3 injra. 3 II, pp. 61 ff. infra.
INTRODUCTION 15
whatever. This was evidently intended to attract the attention of an audience so as to induce them to give more j heed to the somewhat intricate details which follow. In other cases, he puts at the beginning or end of a book a more or less detailed summary of those which preceded it, lest, as he states in one instance, his hearers should have forgotten what he has before said.1 These are the usual artifices of a lecturer, but a more salient example is perhaps those ends of chapters giving indications of what is to follow immediately, which can hardly be anything else than announcements in advance of the subject of the next lecture. Thus, at the end of Book I, he promises to explain the mystic rites 2 — a promise which is for us unful- filled in the absence of Books II and III ; at the end of