Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume IHippolytus, Antipope
Philosophy
Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume I
Hippolytus, Antipope
Christian heresies -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600; Occultism; Philosophy, Ancient
but were derived from philosophic theories of the creation of things,
and from the mystic rites.
Next let us suppose that at the close of his life, when he was perhaps
hiding from Maximin’s inquisitors, or even when he was at the Sardinian
mines, he thought of preserving his work for posterity by re-writing
it--such copies as he had left behind him in Rome having been doubtless
seized by the Imperial authorities.[64] Not having the material that he
had before used then at his disposal, he had to make the best summary
that he could from memory, and in the course of this found that the
contents of the Books I, II, and III--the material for which he had
drawn in the first instance from Irenæus--had more or less escaped
him. He was probably able to recall some part of Book I by the help of
heathen works like those of Diogenes Laertius, Aetius, or perhaps that
Alcinous whose summary of Plato’s doctrines seem to have been formerly
used by him.[65] The Ophite and other Gnostic heresies he remembers
sufficiently to make his summary of their doctrines more easy,
although he omits from the list heresiarchs like Marcus, Satornilus
and Menander, about whom he had never had any exclusive information,
and he now puts Justinus after instead of before Basilides. Finally,
he remembered the Jewish sects which he had once intended to include,
and being perhaps able to command, even in the mines, the work of a
Romanized but unconverted Jew like Josephus, took from it such facts as
seemed useful for his purpose as an introduction to the chronological
speculation which had once formed his favourite study. With this
summary as his guide he continued, it may be, to warn the companions in
adversity to whom he tells us he had “become an adviser,” against the
perils of heresy, and to appeal to his unconverted listeners with what
his former translator calls not unfitly “a noble specimen of patristic
eloquence.” That he died in the mines is most probable, not only from
his advanced age at the time of exile and the consequent unlikelihood
that he would be able to withstand the pestilential climate, but also
from the record of his body having been “deposited” in the Catacombs
on the same day with that of his fellow-Pope and martyr Pontianus.[66]
Yet the persecution of Maximin, though sharp, was short, and on the
death of the tyrant after a reign of barely three years, there is no
reason why the transcript of Book X should not have reached Rome, where
there is some reason to think it was known from its opening words as
“the Labyrinth.” Later it was probably appended to Books IV to IX of
Hippolytus’ better known work, and the whole copied for the use of
those officials who had to enquire into heresy. To them, Books II and
III would be useless, and they probably thought it inexpedient to
perpetuate any greater knowledge than was necessary for their better
suppression, of the unclean mysteries of either pagan or Gnostic. As
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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