apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

386 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
Didymus of Alexandria^ report Valentinus as making Sige
the immediate
parent of Logos while the
;
Valentinian Theodotus, as quoted by-
Clement of Alexandria', speaks of Sige as 'the mother of all the
emanations (twv npo^XriOf.vTm') from Bythos', probably however meaning
nothing more than that she was the first parent of the whole race of
reons. Still less happy was the solution adopted by Pearson (p. 384 sq)
and Cotelier {ad loc.) and by other more recent writers, that the passage
is directed against the Ebionites, the 'procession from silence' being
thus regarded as equivalent to the denial of the pre-existence of the
Son^; though
this solution had one slender foot-hold of truth in the
fact that our author in the context is plainly seen to be attacking
Judaizers. Nor was Pearson successful in his attempt to show (ii. 7)
that, even if Valentinus were intended, the statement could not be
regarded as an anachronism, since the errors of this heresiarch might
have been known even to Ignatius. With greater effect he and others
after him maintained that this Sige was by
no means a creation of
Valentinus ;
that it was borrowed from heathen cosmogonies ;
that it
was found in a cosmical genealogy as early as the Comic poet Antiphanes*
;
and lastly that Gregory Nazianzen (in a very loose and highly
ttJ dSeX^Tj n.i'^vv^ivov rkKvov -yap elvai.
Tov JivOov iXiyero i] 'S(.yi].
In the text
which Pearson had before him, the words
were read eTeKfoirolei. X67011 tov Trap' "E\-
Xijcrt!' Ai6s" ovTos %e/pwj' tov k.t.X., and
'
he conjectured \6y(j) ad modum vel similitudinem
Jovis' (Vind. Ign. p. 402 sq),
though he mentions the reading \hyov in
an Oxford MS. See the next note.
^
De Trm. iii.
42 (p. 992, Migne) Ova.-
XevTbov... fivdov
. . .
dvavXaaafJ-ivov Toiovde,
OTL 6 3v9bs eyivprjcrev ttjv ^lyrjv, e/c 5^
ravTijs TexvoTTOLTicraiJ.ei'OV \6yov
tlvo, tov
Trap' "EXXtjcti At6s k.t.X., quoted by Churton
(Pearson Vhtd. /gn. p. 403, note),
who remarks 'Quo sensu intelHgendus
sit iste X670S rts tov Trap' "EXXtjcti Atbs nescire
me non diffiteor ', and then offers a
tentative explanation. It is clear however
from the whole context that the passage
of Didymus is not independent of the
passage of Cyril. He must therefore
have misread or misheard (for he was
blind) the words of Cyril or Cyi-il's authority,
as the substitution of T€xvoiroi.y)-
aa/jiivov 'having artificially invented' for
€T€KvoTroi7]cre shows, and his text must
have wrongly connected the words.
2 Exc. Theod. 29 [Op. 11. p. 976, Potter)
'H crt777, (pafflv, tX7)T7)p ovaa wavruv
Tuv irpo^\7]divTU}v inrb tov ^ddovs {^vdov7)
K.T.X. The same is
probably the meaning
of the authority quoted by Epiphanius
Haer. xxxi. 5 (p. 169) aiJr7 5^ 17 e/c tov
Trarpos koX t^s aiyri's TCTpds' HvOpuiros,
eKK\7](rLa, \6yos, ^wrj. Pearson suspects
a lacuna in this passage of Epiphanius,
Vind. Ign, p. 402.
^
This same interpretation had been
suggested by Petau (de Theol. Dogni, iv.
p. 163, Antwerp 1700) but he ; says
nothing of a polemical reference to the
Ebionites. Pearson's view is controverted
by Bull Defcns. Fid. Nic. iii. i (
Works
v. p. 476 who sq), supposes the Cerinthians
to be intended. The Docetism of
Cerinthus however was, as I have pointed
out, different in character from that of
these heretics.
* Iren. Haer. ii.
14. i 'Antiphanes in