------------------------
[1603] Gallandi, p. 454.
[1604] That Noetus was a native of Smyrna is mentioned also by Theodoret, book iii. Hæret Fab., c. iii., and Damascenus, sec. lvii. (who is accustomed to follow Epiphanius); and yet in Epiphanius, Hæres., 57, we read that Noetus was an Asian of the city of Ephesus ('Asianon tes 'Ephesou poleos). (Fabricius.)
[1605] Epiphanius says that Noetus made his heresy public about 130 years before his time (ou pro eton pleionon all' hos pro chronou ton touton hekaton triakonta, pleio e elasso); and as Epiphanius wrote in the year 375, that would make the date of Noetus about 245. He says also that Noetus died soon after (enanchos), along with his brother. (Fabricius.)
[1606] So also Epiphanius and Damascenus. But Philastrius, Heresy, 53, puts Elijah for Aaron: hic etiam dicebat se Moysem esse, et fratrem suum Eliam prophetam.
[1607] Epiphanius remarks that they were but ten in number.
[1608] The following words are the words of the Symbolum, as it is extant in Irenæus, i. 10, etc., and iii. 4; and in Tertullian, Contra Praxeam, ch. ii., and De Præscript., ch. xiii., and De virginibus velandis, ch. i. [See vol. iii., this series.]
[1609] Ex. iii. 6 and xx. 3.
[1610] Isa. xliv. 6.
[1611] Baruch iii. 35-38. [Based on Prov. viii., but so remarkable that Grotius presumptuously declared it an interpolation. It reflects canonical Scripture, but has no canonical value otherwise.]
[1612] Isa. xlv. 14.
[1613] Rom. ix. 5.
[1614] kai autois monokola chromenoi, etc. The word monokola appears to be used adverbially, instead of monokolos and monotupos, which are the terms employed by Epiphanius (p. 481). The meaning is, that the Noetians, in explaining the words of Scripture concerning Christ, looked only to one side of the question--namely, to the divine nature; just as Theodotus, on his part going to the opposite extreme, kept by the human nature exclusively, and held that Christ was a mere man. Besides others, the presbyter Timotheus, in Cotelerii Monument., vol. iii. p. 389, mentions Theodotus in these terms: "They say that this Theodotus was the leader and father of the heresy of the Samosatan, having first alleged that Christ was a mere man." [See vol. iii, p. 654, this series.]
[1615] Eph. iii. 15.
[1616] 1 Cor. viii. 6.
[1617] Isa. xlv. 11-15.
[1618] [Bull, Opp., v. pp. 367, 734, 740-743, 753-756.]
[1619] Rom. viii. 11.
[1620] Turrian has the following note: "The Word of God constituted (operatum est) one Son to God; i.e., the Word of God effected, that He who was the one Son of God was also one Son of man, because as His hypostasis He assumed the flesh. For thus was the Word made flesh."
[1621] John iii. 13.
[1622] [John iii. 13.]
[1623] Dan. vii. 13.
[1624] Baruch iii. 36, etc.
[1625] Matt. xvii. 5.
[1626] The word Israel is explained by Philo, De præmiis et poenis, p. 710, and elsewhere, as = a man seeing God, horon Theon, i.e., 'ys v'h 'l. So also in the Constitutiones Apostol., vii. 37, viii. 15; Eusebius, Præparat., xi. 6, p. 519, and in many others. To the same class may be referred those who make Israel = horatikos aner kai theoretikos, a man apt to see and speculate, as Eusebius, Præparat., p. 310, or = nous horon Theon, as Optatus in the end of the second book; Didymus in Jerome, and Jerome himself in various passages; Maximus, i. p. 284; Olympiodorus on Ecclesiastes, ch. i.; Leontius, De Sectis, p. 392; Theophanes, Ceram. homil., iv. p. 22, etc. Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryph. [see vol. i. pp. 226, 262], adduces another etymology, anthropos nikon dunamin.
[1627] Hippolytus reads diegesato for exegesato.
[1628] John i. 18.
[1629] John iii. 11, 13.
[1630] Rom. ix. 5.
[1631] Matt. xi. 27.
[1632] Apoc. i. 8.
[1633] Matt. xi. 27. [Compare John v. 22.]
[1634] [Strictly scriptural as to the humanity of Messiah, Heb. i. 9.]
[1635] 1 Cor. xv. 23-28.
[1636] John xx. 17.
[1637] Acts v. 29; iv. 19.
[1638] John x. 30.
[1639] ego kai ho pater--hen esmen, not hen eimi.
[1640] esmen.
[1641] dunamin.
[1642] John xvii. 22, 23.
[1643] ete dunamei kai te diathesei tes homophronias hen ginometha.
[1644] John xiv. 8, 9.
[1645] Rom. iii. 25.
[1646] John v. 30; vi. 29; viii. 16, 18, etc.
[1647] John xiii. 1; xiv. 12.
[1648] dunamis.
[1649] There is perhaps a play on the words here--Noetos me noon.
[1650] i.e., the other thirty-one heresies, which Hippolytus had already attacked. From these words it is apparent also that this treatise was the closing portion of a book against the heresies (Fabricius).
[1651] [This emphatic testimony of our author to the sufficiency of the Scriptures is entirely in keeping with the entire system of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Note our teeming indexes of Scripture texts.]
[1652] See, on this passage, Bull's Defens. Fid. Nic., sec. iii. cap. viii. § 2, p. 219.
[1653] polus en.
[1654] alogos, asophos, adunatos, abouleutos.
[1655] On these words see Bossuet's explanation and defence, Avertiss., vi. § 68, sur les lettres de M. Jurieu.
[1656] archegon, kai sumboulon, kai ergaten.
[1657] The "begetting" of which Hippolytus speaks here is not the generation, properly so called, but that manifestation and bringing forth of the Word co-existing from eternity with the Father, which referred to the creation of the world. So at least Bull and Bossuet, as cited above; also Maranus, De Divinit. J. C., lib. iv. cap. xiii. § 3, p. 458.
[1658] phos ek photos. This phrase, adopted by the Nicene Fathers, occurs before their time not only here, but also in Justin Martyr, Tatian, and Athenagoras, as is noticed by Grabe, ad Irenæum, lib. ii. c. xxiii. Methodius also, in his Homily on Simeon and Anna, p. 152, has the expression, su ei phos alethinon ek photos alethinou Theos alethinos ek Theou alethinou. Athanasius himself also uses the phrase luchnon ek luchnou, vol. i. p. 881, ed. Lips. [Illustrating my remarks (p. v. of this volume), in the preface, as to the study of Nicene theology in Ante-Nicene authors.]
[1659] noun.
[1660] Justin Martyr also says that the Son is heteron ti, something other, from the Father; and Tertullian affirms, Filium et Patrem esse aluid ab alio, with the same intent as Hippolytus here, viz., to express the distinction of persons. [See vol. i. pp. 170, 216, 263, and vol. iii. p. 604.]
[1661] ek tou pantos.
[1662] Or reason.
[1663] pais.
[1664] Isa. lxv. 1.
[1665] John i. 1-3. Hippolytus evidently puts the full stop at the oude en, attaching the o gegonen to the following. So also Irenæus, Clemens Alex., Origen, Theophilus of Antioch, and Eusebius, in several places; so, too, of the Latin Fathers--Tertullian, Lactantius, Victorinus, Augustine; and long after these, Honorius Augustodunensis, in his De imagine Mundi. This punctuation was also adopted by the heretics Valentinus, Heracleon, Theodotus, and the Macedonians and Eunomians; and hence it is rejected by Epiphanius, ii. p. 80, and Chrysostom. (Fabricius.)
[1666] John i. 10, 11.
[1667] Ps. xxxiii. 6.
[1668] hupostemati, foundation. Victor reads en te hupostasei, in the substance, nature; Symmachus has en te homilia, in the fellowship.
[1669] Jer. xxiii. 18.
[1670] Acts x. 36.
[1671] to thelema. Many of the patristic theologians called the Son the Father's boulesis or thelema. See the passages in Petavius, De S. S. Trinitate, lib. vi. c. 8, § 21, and vii. 12, § 12. [Dubious.]
[1672] From this passage it is clear that Hippolytus taught the doctrine of one God alone and three Persons. A little before, in the eighth chapter, he said that there is one God, according to substance or divine essence, which one substance is in three Persons; and that, according to disposition or economy, there are three Persons manifested. By the term economy, therefore, he understands, with Tertullian, adversus Praxeam. ch. iii., the number and disposition of the Trinity (numerum et dispositionem Trinitatis). Here he also calls the grace of the Holy Spirit the third economy, but in the same way as Tertullian, who calls the Holy Spirit the third grade (tertium gradum). For the terms gradus, forma, species, dispositio, andoeconimia mean the same in Tertullian. (Maranus.) [Another proof that the Nicene Creed was a compilation from Ante-Nicene theologians.]
[1673] oikonomia sumphonias sunagetai eis hena Theon, perhaps = "the" economy as being one of harmony, leads to one God.
[1674] This mode of speaking of the Father's commanding, and the Son's obeying, was used without any offence, not only by Irenæus, Hippolytus, Origen, and others before the Council of Nicæa, but also after that council by the keenest opponents of the Arian heresy--Athanasius, Basil, Marius Victorinus, Hilary, Prosper, and others. See Petavius, De Trin., i. 7, § 7; and Bull, Defens Fid. Nic., pp. 138, 164, 167, 170. (Fabricius.)
[1675] sunetizon.
[1676] Referring probably to Eph. iv. 6.
[1677] The Christian doctrine, Maranus remarks, could not be set forth more accurately; for he contends not only that the number of Persons in no manner detracts from the unity of God, but that the unity of God itself can neither consist nor be adored without this number of Persons.
[1678] This is said probably with reference to Peter's denial.
[1679] Matt. xxviii. 19.
[1680] Triados. [See Theophilus, vol. ii. p. 101, note.]
[1681] all' allos allegorei. The words in Italics are given only in the Latin. They may have dropped from the Greek text. At any rate, some such addition seems necessary for the sense.
[1682] Apoc. xix. 11-13.
[1683] Mic. ii. 7, 8. doxan: In the present text of the Septuagint it is doran, skin.
[1684] Hippolytus omits the words dia tes sarkos and kai peri hamartias, and reads phanerothe for plerothe.
[1685] hon Huion prosegoreue dia to mellein auton genesthai.
[1686] Hippolytus thus gives more definite expression to this temporality of the Sonship, as Dorner remarks, than even Tertullian. See Dorner's Doctrine of the Person of Christ (T. & T. Clark), div. i. vol. ii. p. 88, etc. [Pearson On the Creed, art. ii. p. 199 et seqq. The patristic citations are sufficient, and Hippolytus may be harmonized with them.]
[1687] ten sustasin.
[1688] "Sustasis," says Dorner, "be it observed, is not yet equivalent to personality. The sense is, it had its subsistence in the Logos; He was the connective and vehicular force. This is thoroughly unobjectionable. He does not thus necessarily pronounce the humanity of Christ impersonal; although in view of what has preceded, and what remains to be adduced, there can be no doubt [?] that Hippolytus would have defended the impersonality, had the question been agitated at the period at which he lived." See Dorner, as above, i. 95. [But compare Burton, Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, etc., pp. 60-87, where Tertullian and Hippolytus speak for themselves. Note also what he says of the latter, and his variations of expression, p. 87.]
[1689] John xvi. 28.
[1690] Reading exelthon. The Latin interpreter seems to read exelthon = what is this that came forth.
[1691] pneuma. The divine in Christ is thus designated in the Ante-Nicene Fathers generally. See Grotius on Mark ii. 8; and for a full history of the term in this use, Dorner's Person of Christ, i. p. 390, etc. (Clark).
[1692] ten peri touton oikonomian.
[1693] ten tou demiourgesantos empeiron kai anekdiegetou technen.
[1694] i.e., Matthew and Luke in their Gospels.
[1695] John iii. 6.
[1696] Ps. cx. 3.
[1697] [A noble aphorism. See Shedd, Hist. of Theol., i. pp. 300, 301, and tribute to Pearson, p. 319, note. The loving spirit of Auberlen, on the defeat of rationalism, may be noted with profit in his Divine Revelations, translation, Clark's ed., 1867.]
[1698] Isa. liii. 1.
[1699] makarioi.
[1700] kata phantasian e tropen.
[1701] [The sublimity of this concluding chapter marks our author's place among the most eloquent of Ante-Nicene Fathers.]
[1702] The following passage agrees almost word for word with what is cited as from the Memoria hæresium of Hippolytus by Gelasius, in the De duabus naturis Christi, vol. viii. Bibl. Patr., edit. Lugd. p. 704. [Compare St. Ignatius, vol. i. cap. vii. p. 52, this series; and for the crucial point (gennetos kai agennetos) see Jacobson, ii. p. 278.]
[1703] Or, by deed, ergo.
[1704] hierateuomenos, referring to John xi. 51, 52.
[1705] John x. 18.
[1706] John x. 18.
[1707] Isa. liii. 4.
[1708] Matt. xvii. 5. [It may be convenient for some to turn to the Oxford translation of Bishop Bull's Defensio, part i. pp. 193-216, where Tertullian and Hippolytus are nobly vindicated on Nicene grounds. The notes are also valuable.]
[1709] Matt. xxvii. 29. stephanoutai kata diabolou, [i.e., with thorns].
[1710] [Hippolytus confirms Tertullian's testimony. Compare vol. iii. pp. 35 and 58.]
Against Beron and Helix.
Fragments of a discourse, alphabetically divided, [1711] on the Divine Nature [1712] and the Incarnation, against the heretics Beron and Helix, [1713] the beginning of which was in these words, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, with voice never silent the seraphim exclaim and glorify God."
Fragment I.
By the omnipotent will of God all things are made, and the things that are made are also preserved, being maintained according to their several principles in perfect harmony by Him who is in His nature the omnipotent God and maker of all things, [1714] His divine will remaining unalterable by which He has made and moves all things, sustained as they severally are by their own natural laws. [1715] For the infinite cannot in any manner or by any account be susceptible of movement, inasmuch as it has nothing towards which and nothing around which it shall be moved. For in the case of that which is in its nature infinite, and so incapable of being moved, movement would be conversion. [1716] Wherefore also the Word of God being made truly man in our manner, yet without sin, and acting and enduring in man's way such sinless things as are proper to our nature, and assuming the circumscription of the flesh of our nature on our behalf, sustained no conversion in that aspect in which He is one with the Father, being made in no respect one with the flesh through the exinanition. [1717] But as He was without flesh, [1718] He remained without any circumscription. And through the flesh He wrought divinely [1719] those things which are proper to divinity, showing Himself to have both those natures in both of which He wrought, I mean the divine and the human, according to that veritable and real and natural subsistence, [1720] (showing Himself thus) as both being in reality and as being understood to be at one and the same time infinite God and finite man, having the nature [1721] of each in perfection, with the same activity, [1722] that is to say, the same natural properties; [1723] whence we know that their distinction abides always according to the nature of each, and without conversion. But it is not (i.e., the distinction between deity and humanity), as some say, a merely comparative (or relative) matter, [1724] that we may not speak in an unwarrantable manner of a greater and a less in one who is ever the same in Himself. [1725] For comparisons can be instituted only between objects of like nature, and not between objects of unlike nature. But between God the Maker of all things and that which is made, between the infinite and the finite, between infinitude and finitude, there can be no kind of comparison, since these differ from each other not in mere comparison (or relatively), but absolutely in essence. And yet at the same time there has been effected a certain inexpressible and irrefragable union of the two into one substance, [1726] which entirely passes the understanding of anything that is made. For the divine is just the same after the incarnation that it was before the incarnation; in its essence infinite, illimitable, impassible, incomparable, unchangeable, inconvertable, self-potent, [1727] and, in short, subsisting in essence alone the infinitely worthy good.