11. He holds also that God
has no part with the world itself, and finds no pleasure in it, by
reason of its having been made a spoil of from the first by the
princes, and on account of the ill that rose on it. Wherefore He
sends and takes away from them day by day the soul belonging to Him,
through the medium of these luminaries, the sun and the moon, by which
the whole world and all creation are dominated. Him, again, who
spake with Moses, and the Jews, and the priests, he declares to be the
prince of the darkness; so that the Christians, and the Jews, and the
Gentiles are one and the same body, worshipping the same God: for
He seduces them in His own passions, being no God of truth. For
this reason all those who hope in that God who spake with Moses and the
prophets have to be bound together with the said deity,1523
| 1523
μετ᾽
αὐτοῦ ἔχουσι
δεθῆναι. |
because they
have not hoped in the
God of
truth; for that
deity spake with him in
accordance with their own passions. Moreover, after
all these things, he speaks
in the following terms with regard to the end,
1524
as he has also written: When the
elder has displayed his image,
1525
| 1525 The
text is κάθως
αὐτὸς
ἔγραψεν· ῾Ο
πρεσβύτης,
etc. The Codex Bobiensis gives, “Sicut ipse senior
scripsit: Cum manifestam feceris,” etc., = As the elder
himself wrote: When thou hast, etc. The elder here
is probably the same as the third elder farther on. |
the Omophorus then lets the
earth go from him, and so the mighty
fire
gets free, and consumes the whole
world. Then, again, he lets the
soil go with the new æon,
1526
| 1526 The
Greek is, ἀφίησι τὸν
βῶλον μετὰ
τοῦ νέου
αἰῶνος; but the Latin version
has the strangely diverse rendering, “dimittunt animam quæ
objicitur inter medium novi sæculi” = they let go the soul
that is placed in the midst of the new age. [Routh has
τὴν
βῶλον.] |
in order that all the
souls of
sinners may be bound for ever.
These things will take place at the time when the man’s
image
1527
has
come.
1528
And all
these powers put forth by
God,
1529
| 1529
αἱ δὲ
προβολαὶ
πᾶσαι. |
—namely,
Jesus, who is in the smaller
ship,
1530
| 1530
πλοίῳ. [See Routh, p. 68,
on this locus mire depravatus.] |
and the Mother of
Life, and the twelve helmsmen,
1531
and the
virgin of the
light, and the third
elder, who is in the greater
ship, and the living spirit, and the wall
1532
of the mighty
fire, and the wall of the
wind, and the
air, and the
water, and the interior living
fire,—have their seat in the lesser luminary, until the
fire
shall have consumed the whole
world: and that is to happen within
so many years, the exact number of which, however, I have not
ascertained. And after these things there will be a
restitution
of the two natures;
1533
| 1533
τῶν δύο
φύσεων. But the Latin
version gives duorum luminarium, and the Codex Casinensis has
luminariorum, the two luminaries. |
and the
princes will occupy the lower
parts proper to them, and the
Father the higher parts, receiving again
what is His own due possession.—All this
doctrine he
delivered to
his three
disciples, and charged each to
journey to a separate
clime.
1534
| 1534
Reading κλίματα, with
Petavius, for κλήματα. |
The
Eastern parts fell thus to the lot of Addas;
Thomas1535
| 1535 The
Codex Casinensis makes no mention of Thomas. |
obtained the Syrian territories as his
heritage; and another, to wit, Hermeias, directed his course towards
Egypt. And to this day they, sojourn there, with the purpose of
establishing the propositions contained in this doctrine.
1536
| 1536 Here
ends the Greek of Epiphanius. |
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