Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume II
David Hume · en
[Footnote 1: ἡ καινὴ ἐπιδημία. The book Elchesai, as will presently be
seen, is said to have been revealed “in the third year of Trajan” and
therefore long anterior to our text. Hippolytus, therefore, probably
refers here to a recrudescence of the superstition connected therewith.]
[Footnote 2: This Noetus, whom Epiphanius (_Haer._, LVII) would make
a native of Ephesus, possibly by confusion with the Praxeas against
whom Tertullian wrote, was one of the first to teach the heresy called
Patripassian, which made the Father as well as the Son to suffer on
the Cross. His date is uncertain, but he was “not very long” dead when
Hippolytus wrote (see Hippolytus’ Tractate against Noetus in Gallandi,
_Bibl. Vet. Patr._ II, p. 454), and the seeds of the heresy seem to
have been sown in the time of Justin Martyr. It was undoubtedly Eastern
in origin and passed in Rome chiefly under the name of Sabellius.
Hippolytus was evidently its greatest opponent there, Zephyrinus and
Callistus maintaining a more tolerant attitude towards it, until the
last-named Pope was compelled to excommunicate Sabellius. See Salmon’s
articles in _D.C.B._, s.n.n. “Noetus,” “Praxeas,” “Epigonus” and
“Cleomenes,” and Mr. Hugh Pope’s article on “Monarchian” in Hastings’
_Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics_.]
[Footnote 3: Theodoret (_Haer. Fab._, III, 3) would reverse this
position and make Cleomenes Epigonus’ teacher and not his pupil. He has
probably misread Hippolytus on this point, the later heresiologists
frequently failing to distinguish the founders of any heresy from their
successors.]
[Footnote 4: This is evidently the beginning of Hippolytus’ quarrel
with the Primacy. Of Victor, Zephyrinus’ predecessor in the Roman
Chair, he speaks well. Cf. p. 128 _infra_.]
[Footnote 5: Cf. 2 Peter ii. 22.ff]
[Footnote 6: δυσφημίας.]
[Footnote 7: ἐν τοῖς φιλοσοφουμένοις. The Codex has Φιλοσοφουμένους.
He evidently refers to Book I, in which (Vol. I, p. 41) he has given a
few words in the gnomic sayings of Heraclitus. The only other previous
reference to them seems to be in Book V (Vol. I, p. 154 _supra_) where
he calls Heraclitus one of the wisest of the Greeks and in Book VI
(p. 4 _supra_) where he attributes Simon’s image of “a fiery God”
not to Moses but to Heraclitus. If Cruice’s emendation holds good
this shows that Book I was originally published separately and called
“Philosophizings,” the rest of the work being known as the _Elenchus_
or “Refutation.” Cf. Introduction _supra_. Bishop Wordsworth (St.
_Hippolytus and the Church of Rome_, London, 1880), gets over the
difficulty by reading the passage ἐν τοὺς Φιλοσοφουμένους ἡμῖν, “in
this our Philosophumena,” and this reading has been adopted in this
translation.]
[Footnote 8: Cf. Stobaeus, _Eclog. Phys._, I, xlii.]
[Footnote 9: λόγον αἰῶνα.]