How the salvation of these souls is to be effected there is no indication in Hippolytus, and he leaves us in entire doubt as to whether Basilides allowed any free-will to man in the matter. It is probable that he taught the doctrine of transmigration as a means of purification from sins or faults committed in ignorance. But it is several times asserted that he looked on suffering as a cleansing process for the soul, and that he did not admit the existence of evil (see Hort’s article on Basilides in _D.C.B._, I, pp. 274, 275 for references). About some of his teaching there was deliberate concealment (_ibid._, p. 279), and Irenæus (I, xxiv. 6), tells us that his followers were taught to declare that while they were “no longer Jews” they were “not yet” (or perhaps “more than”) Christians. In this we may perhaps see the influence of the rubrics of the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, and the beginning of that secret propagation of religion which was to find its ripest fruit in Manichæism. For the rest, although Irenæus (I, xxiv. 5) tells us that Basilides, like Simon, Valentinus, and other Gnostics, taught that the body of Jesus was a phantasm, and even that Simon of Cyrene had been crucified in His stead, there appears no trace of this in our text, and it is possible that the Bishop of Lyons is here again confusing Basilides’ doctrines with those of his successors.] [Footnote 2: ὄρος, “hill”; possibly a copyist’s error for ὅρος, “boundary” or “shore.”] [Footnote 3: This exordium was evidently intended to be spoken.] [Footnote 4: οὐσία, Cruice and others translate this by “substance.” Here it evidently means “essence” in the sense of “being.”] [Footnote 5: εἶδος, _i.e._ appearance = that which is seen.] [Footnote 6: ἄτομος, “which cannot be cut or divided,” = “atom.”] [Footnote 7: ἀναδέξασθαι τομήν, “receive cutting.”] [Footnote 8: ζῷον ἁπλῶς. See Aristotle, _Categor._, c. 3. The “living creature” of the A. V. would here make better sense; but I keep the word “animal” in the text out of respect for my predecessors.] [Footnote 9: ὑπόστασις, literally _substantia_, with no meaning as has οὐσία of “being.” See Hatch, _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 275.] [Footnote 10: ἀνείδεον, “abstract,” or “non-specific”?] [Footnote 11: εἴδεσιν.] [Footnote 12: The text has ταύτην .... [τὴν οὐσίαν], the words in brackets being rightly deleted, as Cruice notes.] [Footnote 13: ἐθέμεθα, “posited.”] [Footnote 14: εἰς εἶδος οὐσίας ὑποστατικῆς, which shows the distinction made by the author between ὀυσία and ὑπόστασις.] [Footnote 15: ἄτομον, “undivided.”] [Footnote 16: The text is here corrupt and has to be restored from Aristotle’s, the word I have translated “essence” being as before οὐσία while subject is ὑποκειμένον. Cf. Aristotle _Cat._, c. 5, and _Metaphysica_, IV, c. 8.] [Footnote 17: Or “of many animals although they differ in species.”] [Footnote 18: ἔμψυχος, “animated” or “ensouled.”]