also multifaceted. According to the first mode, a hypothesis is a dramatic peripetia; thus, the tragedies of Euripides are said to have hypotheses. According to a second A meaning, it is found in rhetoric as an inquiry into specific matters, according to which the sophists say that a hypothesis must be posited. According to a third interpretation, a hypothesis is called the starting point of a demonstration—the request for things for the proof of some argument. Thus, as they report, Democritus used a hypothesis, namely atoms and the void; Asclepiades used matter and pores; mathematics, therefore, is accepted according to the third sense of hypotheses.
That Pythagoras did not honor arithmetic alone, but also his most famous disciples, who used to say: All things agree with number....
That arithmetic has as its immediate end, principally, the theory of the sciences, than which no end is greater or more beautiful. A consequential end, however, is to collect together whatever is found in a defined substance.
Who has discovered anything among the mathematicians? As Eudemus narrates, in his *Astrology*, Oenopides was the first to discover the cycle of the zodiac and the revolution of the Great Year; Thales, the eclipse of the sun and its course between the tropics, always unlike itself; Anaximander, that the earth is a body balanced in the air and moves around the axis of the world; Anaximenes, that the moon receives its light from the sun and in what manner it undergoes an eclipse; and the others added other discoveries to these ancient ones.
That first, the fixed stars move around an axis passing through the poles; second, that the wandering stars flee from one another around the axis perpendicular to the zodiac; C that, finally, the axis of the fixed and wandering stars is the side of a quindecagon, which has twenty-four degrees.
CIRCA ANNUM DOMINI CCLX
THEOGNOSTUS ALEXANDRINUS
NOTITIA
(GALLAND., *Bibliotheca veterum Patrum*, III, Proleg. p. XLIX.)I. Why Eusebius and Jerome made no mention of Theognostus. Yet Athanasius mentions him with praise. II. He presided over the School of Alexandria after Pierius. Concerning the time in which he flourished, it is discussed. He wrote the *Hypotyposes* in seven books, long since lost. The summary chapters of these are proposed from Photius. III. In which the criticism of Photius regarding Theognostus is refuted. A passage of Gregory of Nyssa concerning the same writer is examined. The integrity of Theognostus's faith is declared. Fragments of his *Hypotyposes* are transcribed and presented from the great Athanasius.
I. That nothing is said by Eusebius about Theognostus is not surprising, nor by Jerome. And as for Jerome’s silence, it is not something to be wondered at, since he acted as interpreter of the ten books of Ecclesiastical History written by Eusebius Pamphili.
A And in listing those illustrious men who flourished in the Church before his own times, he professes that they were a great help to him; that for this reason, the greatest doctor remained silent because Eusebius was silent. But the silence of the Bishop of Caesarea seems suspect; indeed, he, as a supporter and patron of the Arians, had become accustomed to omitting those things that might have in any way infringed upon the dogmas of that sect, as we demonstrated above from Photius; and so it seemed to Cave and Fabricius that Baronius’s judgment was unfair, by which he pronounced that Eusebius had maliciously omitted the name and writings of Theognostus, a most celebrated theologian, because he was undoubtedly a strenuous defender of the *homoousion*. Yet the great Athanasius mentions him once and again with a preface of honor, to whom he is called *anēr logios*, a learned man, and *Theognostos ho thaumasios kai spoudaios*, that admirable and studious Theognostus.
II. We discover from Philippus Sidetes that Theognostus was Prefect of the Catechetical School of Alexandria after Pierius; and so, according to the reasoning of Dodwell, we conclude he flourished while Carus was emperor, circa the year 282. That he was a disciple of Origen, or at least a very studious reader of his works, Photius seems to intimate sufficiently. We certainly gather that Theognostus existed immediately after Origen from the fact that holy Athanasius, joining both together, calls them *palaious andras*, ancient men.
Our author wrote with a full diction and clear style seven books of *Theological Institutions*, which have long since been lost; the inscription of these the same Photius reports thus:
The Hypotyposes of the blessed Theognostus of Alexandria, interpreter of the sacred books.
And we think with Dodwell that the term *hypotyposes* denotes that he held the prefecture of the catechetical school and the public office of teaching, and that the title of the work itself was taken from his predecessor, Clement. The arguments of the individual books, as Photius reviews them, are of this sort. In the first book, he dealt with God the Father, and demonstrated that He is the Creator of all things, and that matter is not coeternal with Him. In the second, he showed the necessity of the existence of the Son. In the third, he proved by arguments that the Holy Spirit exists. In the fourth, he treated of angels and demons. In the fifth and sixth, he treated D of the Incarnation of God, and argued that it is possible. Finally, he inscribed the last book regarding the creation of God.III. Furthermore, in relating these things, Photius rebukes several points in Theognostus, because, having followed Origen, he drew not a few things from his books *Peri Archōn* that are clearly erroneous and alien to the truth. But learned men, George Bull and Prudentius Maranus, have defended our writer against this Photian censure: the former of whom observes that Photius, out of his very sharp hatred against Origen, was unfair to Theognostus, his follower and defender; and for that reason had accepted his writings in a bad sense, or rather, had wished for them to be accepted by others in that way.
In truth, Theognostus fell not only into the reprehension of Photius, but we discover that certain things in him were also displeasing to Gregory of Nyssa. For thus, writing against Eunomius, he says:
"Kai ou monon en toutō peplanētai kata tēn atopian tou dogmatos Eunomios, all' esti kai en tois Theognōstō peponēmenois to ison heurein, hos phēsin ton Theon tode to pan kataskeuasai, prōton ton Huion hoion tina kanona proupostasthai."
That is: "Nor did Eunomius alone wander into an absurd opinion in this matter; but the same can be found in the books of Theognostus, who says that God, when He wished to constitute this whole universe, had first presupposed the Son as a sort of norm of the creation." And this criticism of Nyssenus must be considered more significant than that of Photius. But another patron of our Alexandrian catechist dilutes it, both because Theognostus is cited by Athanasius as a defender and witness of the Consubstantial, and because that very testimony which Gregory reports describes the Word as that idea and rule according to whose pattern He created all things.But, to conclude what has been said at last, the things which some of the ancients thought worthy of reprehension in Theognostus have no power to detract anything from the illustrious judgment of the great Athanasius; who calls this prefect of the Alexandrian school an admirable man, and maintains that he was eminently orthodox. For those things which that holy Alexandrian prelate brought out from his books—which we have brought forward in their proper place as copies from him—prove that the Arians are pressured by his testimony, and that he openly proclaimed the Son to be *homoousion*.
THEOGNOSTUS OF ALEXANDRIA: FRAGMENTS
Ex libris VII Hypotyposeon
I. (From Book II. In Athanasius, *De decretis Nicænæ synodi*, § XXV, from the BB. ed. Paris 1698, vol. I, part 1, p. 230.)
The substance of the Son is not something discovered extrinsically, nor was it brought in from non-existence; but it sprang from the substance of the Father, as the radiance of light or the vapor of water. For neither the radiance nor the vapor is the water itself or the sun itself; nor, on A the other hand, is it something alien, but it is a certain effluence from the Father’s substance, while the Father’s substance itself undergoes no division. For just as the sun, remaining the same, is not diminished by the rays that flow forth from it, so neither does the substance of the Father undergo any change, when it possesses the Son as its own image.
II. In Athanasius, *Epistola 4 ad Serapionem*, § 11, vol. I, part II, p. 703.
Theognostus adds these things: "He who has transgressed the first and second term might be considered worthy of a lesser punishment, but he who has despised the third will no longer find pardon." He calls the first and second term the instruction received concerning the Father and the Son, but the third, the word delivered in initiation and in the participation of the Spirit. Wishing to confirm this, he cites that which was said by the Savior to the B disciples: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. But when the Holy Spirit comes, he will teach you" (John xvi, 12, 13).
III. Ibidem.
Then he (Theognostus) says: "Just as the Savior speaks to those who cannot yet grasp perfect things, condescending to their smallness; but the Holy Spirit dwells with those who are perfected; not that anyone should for this reason say that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit surpasses the doctrine of the Son; but that the Son indeed condescends to the imperfect, while the Holy Spirit is the seal of those C who are being perfected; thus, not through the superiority of the Spirit to the Son is D