Chapter XXXIII.—These Remaining Chapters an Appendix to the Main Work. In This Chapter Tertullian Notices a Difference Among Sundry Followers of Ptolemy, a Disciple of Valentinus.

I shall now at last produce, by way of finale,306    Velut epicitharisma. after so long a story, those points which, not to interrupt the course of it, and by the interruption distract the reader’s attention, I have preferred reserving to this place. They have been variously advanced by those who have improved on307    Emendatoribus. the doctrines of Ptolemy. For there have been in his school “disciples above their master,” who have attributed to their Bythus two wives—Cogitatio (Thought) and Voluntas (Will). For Cogitatio alone was not sufficient wherewith to produce any offspring, although from the two wives procreation was most easy to him. The former bore him Monogenes (Only-Begotten) and Veritas (Truth). Veritas was a female after the likeness of Cogitatio; Monogenes a male bearing a resemblance to Voluntas. For it is the strength of Voluntas which procures the masculine nature,308    Censum. inasmuch as she affords efficiency to Cogitatio.

CAPUT XXXIII.

Producam denique velut epicitharisma post fabulam tantam, etiam illa quae ne ordini obstreperent, et lectoris intentionem interjectione dispargerent, hunc malui in locum distulisse, aliter atque aliter commendata ab emendatoribus Ptolomaei. Extiterunt enim de schola ipsius discipuli super magistrum, qui duplex conjugium Bytho suo adfingerent, Cogitationem et Voluntatem. Una enim satis non erat Cogitatio, qua nihil producere potuisset, ex duabus facillimo prolatu . Primum conjugium, Monogenem et Veritatem; ad imaginem quidem Cogitationis, foeminam Veritatem; ad imaginem 0589B Voluntatis, marem Monogenem. Voluntatis enim vis, uti quae effectum praestat Cogitationi, maris obtinet censum .