Against Heresies — Book 2, Chapter 3

13

In the barbarous Latin version, we here find utrum … an as the translation of ἤ … ἤ instead of aut … aut.

14

We have translated the text as it here stands in the mss. Grabe omits spiritalem et; Massuet proposes to read et invisibilem, and Stieren invisibilem.

15

In præsentia: Grabe proposes in præscientia, but without ms. authority. “The reader,” says Harvey, “will observe that there are three suppositions advanced by the author: that the world, as some heretics asserted, was eternal; that it was created in time, with no previous idea of it in the divine mind; or that it existed as a portion of the divine counsels from all eternity, though with no temporal subsistence until the time of its creation,—and of this the author now speaks.” The whole passage is most obscurely expressed.

Book 2 · Chapter 3

The Bythus and Pleroma of the Valentinians, as well as the God of Marcion, shown to be absurd; the world was actually created by the same Being who had conceived the idea of it, and was not the fruit of defect or ignorance.

Section 1

Section 2

Notes