Note 333 — BOOK V THE OPHITE HERESIES (continued 2)

There is no reason to doubt Hippolytus’ assertion that this chapter is compiled from a book called Baruch in which Justinus set forth his own doctrines. The narrative therein is, unlike that of the earlier chapters, perfectly coherent and plain, and the author’s use of the historical present gives it a dramatic form which is lacking from the oratio obliqua formerly employed. Solecisms like the omission of the article are also rare, and the very long sentences in which Hippolytus seems to have delighted do not appear except in those passages where he is speaking in his own person. Whether from this or from some other cause, moreover, the transcription of it seems to have given less difficulty to the scribe Michael than some of the other chapters, and there is therefore far less need to constantly restore the text as in the case of the quotations from Sextus Empiricus. On the whole, therefore, we may assume that, as we have it, it is a genuine summary of Justinus’ doctrines taken from a work by his own hand.