Chapter III.—Noetianism an Offshoot from the Heraclitic Philosophy.

But since we have exhibited the succession of their genealogy, it seems expedient next that we should also explain the depraved teaching involved in their doctrines. For this purpose we shall first adduce the opinions advanced by Heraclitus “the Obscure,”949    [῾Ο Σκοτεινός, because he maintained the darkest system of sensual philosophy that ever shed night over the human intellect.—T. Lewis in Plato against the Atheists, p. 156; Elucidation VII.] and we shall next make manifest what are the portions of these opinions that are of Heraclitean origin. Such parts of their system its present champions are not aware belong to the “Obscure” philosopher, but they imagine950    [Note the use of this phrase, “imagine themselves, etc.,” as a specialty of our author’s style. See cap. ii. supra; Elucidation VIII.] them to belong to Christ. But if they might happen to fall in with the following observations, perhaps they thus might be put out of countenance, and induced to desist from this godless blasphemy of theirs. Now, even though the opinion of Heraclitus has been expounded by us previously in the Philosophumena, it nevertheless seems expedient now also to set down side by side in contrast the two systems, in order that by this closer refutation they may be evidently instructed. I mean the followers of this (heretic), who imagine951    [Note the use of this phrase, “imagine themselves, etc.,” as a specialty of our author’s style. See cap. ii. supra; Elucidation VIII.] themselves to be disciples of Christ, when in reality they are not so, but of “the Obscure.”

[8] Ἀλλ' ἐπεὶ τῆς γενεαλογίας αὐτῶν τὴν διαδοχὴν ἐπεδείξαμεν, δοκεῖ λοιπὸν καὶ τῶν δογμάτων [αὐτῶν] τὴν κακοδιδασκαλίαν ἐκθέσθαι, πρότερον [μὲν] τὰ Ἡρακλείτῳ τῷ σκοτεινῷ δόξαντα παραθεμένους, ἔπει[τα δὲ] καὶ τὰ τούτων Ἡρακλείτεια μέρη ὄντα φανερώσαν[τας. οἷς οὐκ] ἐντυχόντες οἱ νῦν προστάται τῆς αἱρέσεως οὐκ ἴσασιν ὄντα τοῦ σκοτεινοῦ, νομίζοντες εἶναι Χριστοῦ: οἷς [δ'] εἰ ἐνέτυχον, κἂν οὕτω δυσωπηθέντες [ἐ]παύσαντ' ἂν τῆς ἀθέου δυσφημίας. ἀλλ' εἰ καὶ πρότερον ἔκκειται ὑφ' ἡμῶν ἐν τοῖς Φιλοσοφο[υ]μένοις ἡ δόξα Ἡρακλείτου, ἀλλά γε δοκεῖ προσαν[τι]παραθεῖναι καὶ νῦν, ὅπως διὰ τοῦ ἐγγίονος ἐλέγχου φανερῶς διδαχθῶσιν οἱ τοῦ [Νοη]τοῦ, [ἑαυτοὺς] νομίζοντες Χριστοῦ εἶναι μαθητάς, οὐκ ὄντας [δέ], ἀλλὰ τοῦ σκοτεινοῦ.