[Footnote 45: ὁμοούσιος. The first occurrence, so far as it can be traced, of this too-famous word. If I am right, the interpretation of οὐσία by “substance” came later. The nature of the Sonhood (Υἱότης, Lat., _filietas_, which I translate “Sonhood” by analogy with _paternitas_ = Fatherhood) is peculiar to Basilides, the idea being apparently that within the Panspermia was concealed a germ which was more closely related to its Divine Parent than the rest. The same idea _mutatis mutandis_ reappears in Weissmann’s theory of the germ-plasm.] [Footnote 46: Homer, _Odyssey_, VII, 36.] [Footnote 47: δι’ ὑπερβολὴν κάλλους καὶ ὡραιότητος. The longing of all nature for something higher is also mentioned in the Book on the Ophites (See Book V, Vol. I, pp. 123, 140 _supra_). The phrase was evidently a favourite one with Hippolytus, and he therefore uses it in regard to several heresies, as he has done with the magnet simile.] [Footnote 48: μιμητική τις οὖσα, “being an imitative thing.”] [Footnote 49: Plato, _Phaedrus_, cc. 55, 56.] [Footnote 50: ὁμοούσιον.] [Footnote 51: χαρακτηρισθῆναι.] [Footnote 52: Ps. cxxxiii. 2.] [Footnote 53: ἀμορφίας καὶ τοῦ διαστήματος τοῦ καθ’ ἡμᾶς. The ἀμορφία corresponds exactly to the Chaos of the other Gnostics, as contrasted with the Cosmos or ordered world which in this case is above it. In it, as we see later (p. 356 Cr.) there is neither “leader nor guardian nor demiurge,” and everything happens by predestination. The διάστημα we have already met with in the teaching of Simon Magus (p. 261 Cr.). Although in classical Greek it means an “interval,” it is here evidently intended to signify something uncultivated, or, as we should say, a “waste.”] [Footnote 54: It gives benefit by passing into the souls of certain chosen men and thus enabling them to obtain the highest beatitude. It receives it by thus purifying itself and so working out in turn its own salvation.] [Footnote 55: He evidently regards the three persons of the Sonhood as one being.] [Footnote 56: “Cosmos.”] [Footnote 57: Τὸ Μεθόριον Πνεῦμα.] [Footnote 58: The likeness of this to the Egyptian Horus who was at once the sky-god and the ruler of the sublunary world, whose earthly representative was the Pharaoh, is manifest. So, too, is its connection with Horos, the Limit, of the Pleroma in Book VI.] [Footnote 59: So in the _Pistis Sophia_ the great ruler of the material world is only spoken of as the Great Propatôr or Forefather, but his personal name is never mentioned. The word Ἄρχων here applied to this power is never used by later Gnostics except in a bad sense.] [Footnote 60: δεσπότης = autocrat or ruler having unlimited power.] [Footnote 61: καθ’ ἕκαστα.] [Footnote 62: This idea of a Power bringing into being a son greater than himself seems peculiar to Basilides among Gnostic teachers. Its origin may, perhaps, be sought among Pagan religions like the Greek worship of Isis. See _Forerunners_, I, p. 63.]