Note 19 — BOOK X SUMMARIES, AND THE WORD OF TRUTH
Francis Legge translation
In this chapter on the Naassenes, Hippolytus may be supposed to have had before him either the whole of Book V or the notes from which it was written. We may see, therefore, from this, what his idea of an epitome is. He does not try to condense his former statements so as to give us a bird’s-eye view of the whole heresy, but picks out from them a few sentences which seem to him of special importance. Hence it is only useful to us as a means of checking the text, and brings us no nearer to an appreciation of the doctrines of the sect.