Book 1

Preface

This Translation of S. Irenæus’ work against Heresies was finished by the Translator though not begun to be printed in his lifetime. One very remarkable feature in the work, the depth of S. Irenæus’ fervent and loyal Love for his Master, as of one who all but remembered His earthly Life, amid the drearier exposure of the wild Gnostic Heresies, ever glowing forth;—the firm gentle lowly loyal mind of the Author of the Christian Year could best render into English.

For correcting the Press, except the two first sheets, for the few notes signed E, as also for the Translation of the earlier Fragments, the son of the last surviving Editor of the Library of the Fathers is responsible. The Very Rev. Dr. Smith, Dean of Canterbury, kindly vouches for the accuracy of the fragments translated from the Syriac, and these last have been collated afresh with the Mss. from which they were printed.

With regard to the genuineness of the fragments, Massuet the Benedictine Editor who had bestowed much pains in verifying those which his predecessors had collected from Catenae, &c., points out (i. 338) that they were of two kinds, those given by Eusebius and other ancient writers being undoubtedly genuine, those given by later writers or again by Catenae (whose compilers constantly condensed very considerably, whose transcribers sometimes put by mistake the wrong name) are of more doubtful authority. Massuet sums up, We give here all the fragments which have been collected by Feuardent, Halloix, Sirmond, Combefis, Grabe and others and those which ourselves have collected, yet not attaching to them more credit than they deserve.

The first 13 fragments and the 6 Syriac ones, and again those marked 35 to 38 will probably be genuine, the 14th and again the last fragment from the Armenian almost certainly spurious; of the Catenae-fragments some rest on the authority of several Mss., (and for these the probability of the wrong name having been appended is very considerably diminished,) some again at present on that of one Ms. only, while fragment xxxix attributed to S. Irenæus by the Vatican Ms. 331 and one of the Mss. used by the editor of the Leipzig Catena, is by his other Ms. attributed to Diodorus, and probably also (since Muenter was the first to publish it) the 3 Paris Catenae consulted by Massuet attribute this fragment to Diodorus or some other writer.

P. E. PUSEY.

Oxford,

Oct. 1. 1872.

Book 1

§ 1. Forasmuch as there are some, who, putting the truth away from them¹¹, introduce in its stead^2a false tales and vain genealogies, which minister questions, according to the saying of the Apostle,³* rather than godly edifying which is of faith, and by a cunning assemblage of plausible topics pervert the mind of the simpler sort, and lead them away captive, adulterating⁴² the oracles of the Lord; so becoming evil expounders of good words, and subvert many, withdrawing them, under pretence of knowledge, from Him by Whom this universe was framed and adorned, as though they had something higher and greater to show them than God Who made Heaven and Earth and all things that are therein:⁵* alluring persuasively enough, in the first instance, by dexterity of words, such as are unsuspecting into this mode of enquiry, but in the most revolting way bringing them to ruin at last, by framing their minds to all blasphemy and impiety against the Creator; they having no power, even on this point⁶³ to distinguish falsehood from truth:

§ 2. (For no false teaching is wont to offer itself to our view singly and apart, lest such exposure should lead to conviction; but craftily putting on a plausible dress, makes itself by its outward habiliments appear to the simpler sort truer than Truth itself, according to what was said of such cases by one superior to us: “^7bThe precious stone, the real emerald, accounted by some of great value, is dishonoured by the artful imitation of itself in glass, whenever he is not by, who hath power to prove it, and detect the craft so cunningly put in practice. Again, when there is an alloy of brass with our silver, what simple person shall be lightly able to assay it?”)

In order therefore that it may not be our fault, if any be snatched away as sheep by wolves, not knowing them on account of the sheepskin which they outwardly wear;⁸⁴ which sort the Lord commanded us to beware of, speaking as we do, but meaning all the contrary:⁹* I have judged it needful, on meeting with the writings of those who call themselves disciples of Valentinus; and also after conversation had with some of them, and understanding their drift; to declare unto thee, well-beloved, their portentous and deep mysteries, “^10cwhich all men receive not,” because all have not yet spit out their brains: that thou also, having learned them, mayest disclose them to all who are with thee, and exhort them to avoid the depth of these men’s folly, and blasphemy against Christ.

And to the best of our power, we will shortly and clearly set forth the meaning of those who are now teaching amiss, I mean of Ptolemy and his partizans, which school is a kind of efflorescence¹¹⁵ from that of Valentinus: and then we will suggest topics according to our moderate ability, for the refutation of the same; shewing how monstrous their assertions are, and how inconsistent with the Truth. And this, although we have neither been accustomed to composition, nor trained to any arts of discourse; charity only urging us to make known to thee, and all who are with thee, what things they teach:—things hitherto concealed, but which now at length by the grace of God have found their way into the light. For there is nothing covered which shall not be revealed, nor hid, which shall not be made known.¹²*

§ 3. But thou wilt not require of us, who dwell among Celts, and converse for the most part in a foreign language, skill in discourse which we have not learned, nor power of composition, which we have not practised, nor eloquence of phrase, nor persuasiveness, of which we know nothing. Rather in simplicity, and truth, and plainness, the things which are written to thee lovingly, thou wilt lovingly accept, and what is more, wilt cherish them within thyself, as being more competent than we are, receiving them from us as a kind of seeds and principles. That which we have briefly expressed, thou wilt cause to bear much fruit in the wide field of thine understanding; and wilt forcibly represent to them that are with thee what we have but faintly detailed. And as we have sought, according to thy request made long ago for information about their meaning, not only to make it known to thee, but also to provide thee with resources for demonstrating its falsehoods: so wilt thou too seek honestly to minister unto others, according to the grace given thee by the Lord: to the end that our people may be no longer perverted by their show of reasoning: whereof the account is as follows;—

Chap. I. § 1. They affirm that there is in certain high places unseen and unnamed, I know not what perfect Æon; existing before all; whom they call sometimes Proarche, the First Beginning, sometimes Propator, the First Father, sometimes Bythos, that is, the Deep; that he is likewise invisible and incomprehensible; and that being incomprehensible and invisible, eternal also and unbegotten, he abode in great tranquillity and calm through boundless ages:

That there exists with him also, Thought, the same whom they likewise denominate Grace and Silence; and that at some unknown time it occurred to the said Bythos to put forth from himself what should be a beginning of all things; and that this which he was minded to put forth, being as it were seed, he deposited, as in a womb, with the partner of his being, Silence:

That she, having received this seed, and become pregnant, brought forth Mind, who is similar to him that begat him, and alone comprehendeth the greatness of his Father; to which Mind they also give the name of Only-begotten, and Father, and principle of all things: and that there was produced together with him, Truth: and that this is the first and aboriginal quaternion of Pythagoras, which also they style the root of all things; namely, the Deep, and Silence, and, after them, Mind and Truth.

Further, that the Only Begotten, having become aware of the purposes for which he was produced, did himself also produce the Word, and the Life; thus becoming the Father of all who should be after him, and the principle and formative power, of the whole Pleroma: next, that from the Word and the Life were produced, as in marriage, the Man and the Church; and that this was the aboriginal Ogdoas or Eight, the root and substance of all things; having according to them, four names, the Deep, the Mind, the Word, and the Man: each of these being both male and female; as follows:—First, the Great Father they said, was united as in marriage to his own Thought; next the Only-begotten, that is, the Mind, to the Truth; afterwards the Word to the Life; and the Man to the Church:

§ 2. Moreover, that these Æons, as they were produced for the Father’s glory, so wishing also themselves to glorify the Father by something of their own, produced offspring as in marriage: first, that the Word and the Life, after the Man and the Church, brought into being other ten Æons, whose names they say are these:—the Profound, and Commixture; the Undecaying, and Union; the Self-originated, and Pleasure; the Unmoved, and Incorporation; the Only-begotten, and the Blessed One. These are the ten additional Æons, who they say were produced by the Word and Life. They add that the Man also for his part with the Church produced twelve Æons, on whom they bestow these names:—the Comforter, and Faith; the Paternal One, and Hope; the Maternal One, and Love; the Ever-Intelligent, and Understanding; the Ecclesiastical One, and Blessedness; the Desired, and Wisdom.

§ 3. These are the 30 Æons of their false doctrine, kept hitherto in silence, and unknown. This is the invisible and spiritual Fulness they talk of, with its threefold division into sets respectively of eight, and ten, and twelve beings. And they affirm this to have been the reason why the Saviour, (for they are not willing to call Him Lord), for 30 years did nothing openly; declaring this mystery of the Æons. Yea, and in the parable of the labourers which were sent into the vineyard they say it is most evident that these 30 Æons are indicated; in that some are sent about the first hour, some about the third, others about the sixth, others again the ninth, and a further set about the eleventh. Now the aforesaid hours, being added together, make up the number thirty. For 1 + 3 + 6 + 9 + 11 = 30. And the Hours, they affirm, signify the Æons. And these, they add, are the great and wonderful and unutterable mysteries, the fruit of which themselves only bear; as also of any among the many sayings of Scripture, which one haply may be able to accommodate, and cause to appear like their invention.^13d

Chap. II. § 1. To proceed. Their First Father they affirm to be known unto none but the Only-Begotten who sprang from him, that is, to the Mind; to all the rest, they say, he remains invisible and incomprehensible. But the Mind alone, according to them, having delight in the contemplation of the Father, and rejoicing in the thought of His immeasurable greatness, was purposing to communicate to the other Æons also the greatness of the Father, how vast his duration and extent; how he was unoriginated and incomprehensible, and incapable of being beheld. But Silence restrained him, by the will of the Father, because he was minded to bring them all to imagine and long for some mode of searching out their First Father, such as we have described him. And thus all the other Æons continued alike in a kind of silence, longing to behold the first originator of their seed, and to acquaint themselves with the Root which has no beginning.

§ 2. Only the last and youngest Æon of the Family of twelve, produced by the Man and the Church, that is, Wisdom, made a spring far onward, and was affected, in some way without intercourse with her partner, the Desired; (a kind of thing which had begun in the case of the Mind, and Truth, but in its result affected only this perverted Æon; perverted, in pretence, by Love, but in reality by Presumption); on account of his not having communion with the Perfect Father, as the Mind also had. Now the Passion which this Æon conceived was searching after the Father. For he would fain, they say, comprehend His greatness. Next, they add, not being able, because it was a thing impossible which he was attempting, he was in a very intense inward strife, because of the vastness of that Deep, and the unsearchable nature of the Father, and his yearning after him. Which things continually urging him onward, he would at length have been absorbed by His delightsomeness, and resolved into His whole being, had he not met with that power which supports and guards all things, excepting only the greatness which is unspeakable. And to this power they give the name also of Horos, that is, Order, or Limit. And by this, that youngest Æon, they say, was restrained and steadied: and having hardly returned to himself and become convinced that the Father is incomprehensible, he put off his former intention, together with the impression which had come upon him from that astounding wonder!

§ 3. And some of them make a kind of legend of that which befel Wisdom, and her recovery: as though she having attempted a thing impossible and inconceivable, brought forth a substance without form; even as it was natural for her, being a female, to bring forth^14e. And on considering her offspring, they add, she was first of all vexed, because of the imperfect birth, then affrighted, lest her being itself might prove incapable of perfection^15f; and upon that she was beside herself, and in despair, enquiring the cause, and how she might conceal what happened. And that being sore beset with these passions, she took a turn, and endeavoured to hasten back to the Father, and having ventured a certain way, failed through weakness, and became a suppliant to the Father, and that she was joined in her supplication by the other Æons, especially by the Mind.

This, they say, was the first origin of the substance^16g of matter, namely, out of that ignorance and grief, and fear, and astonishment.

§ 4. Moreover, the Father, with a view to these things, produces the aforesaid Order, or Limit, by the Only Begotten, in his own image, unpaired, with nothing of the weaker sex about him. (For so they affirm the Father to exist, sometimes in concert with Silence, sometimes above male and female alike). And this being, called Order, they denominate also the Cross, and the Redeemer, and the Assertor of Liberty, and Assigner of Boundaries, and Maintainer of Causes. And by means of this Order, they say, Wisdom was purified, and confirmed, and restored to her place as one of a pair of Æons. That is, the fruit of her fancy having been separated from her, with the passion which accompanied it, she herself remains within the Pleroma; but that this her mental produce, with all passion, is by the aforesaid Order put apart in a state of privation; and being turned out of the Pleroma, continues indeed a spiritual substance, having a certain natural energy such as belongs to an Æon, but without form or kind, as not comprehending any thing. And therefore they call it an imbecile and feminine fruit (of wisdom).

§ 5. But after the separation of the Offspring to a region without the Pleroma of the Æons, and the restoration of the mother to her place as one of a pair, the Only-Begotten, as they say, again produced another pair, according to the purpose of the Father, that none of the Æons might suffer as she had done; another pair; Christ and the Holy Ghost, to fix and consolidate the Pleroma;¹⁷* and so by these the worlds [or Æons] were framed. For that Christ for his part instructed them that they were sufficiently acquainted already¹⁸⁶ with the nature of their own Communion, and the Idea of the Unbegotten; and that he declared among them the mode of coming to more knowledge of the Father; that He is incomprehensible, and inconceivable, and can neither be seen nor heard, any further than He is known through the Only Begotten: also that the principal eternal duration to the other Æons is the original Incomprehensible nature of the Father: but to him who is the Father’s offspring and Son it is His being comprehensible by him; which indeed is what makes him His equal. These then were the proceedings among them of the newly produced Æon, Christ.

§ 6. The one Spirit, again, the Holy one, for his part instructed them to give thanks for being all made mutually equal, and guided them to the true rest.

And so they say the Æons were constituted, equal in form and in purpose; having all become Minds; and all, Words; and all, Men; and all, Christs; and the females in like manner, all, Truths; and all, Lives; and Spirits, and Churches.

And it is added, that hereupon all things being confirmed, and come to perfect rest, with great joy say hymns to the First Father, taking their share in high festal gladness.

And that on account of this benefit, with one will and mind, the whole Pleroma of Æons, Christ and the Spirit consenting, and their Father setting his seal,—each, I say of the Æons severally contributed whatever he had most beautiful and blooming in himself; and having put in each his share, and fitly combined the same, and harmoniously united them, they produced a most perfect Emanation¹⁹⁷ to the honour and glory of Him who is the Deep, the beauty and star of their Pleroma, even their perfect fruit, Jesus who was also called Saviour, and Christ, and the Word, as a son is called after his father; and All, because he is of them all.

Moreover, that as body-guards to themselves, to their own honour, they produced also Angels, of the same nature with him.

Chap. III. § 1. These then are the transactions spoken of by them as taking place within the Pleroma; first, what became subject to passion, and well nigh lost itself as it were in a vast and intricate matter²⁰⁸, trying to search out the Father; next, the composition, equivalent to six Æons in one, of him who is called Order, and the Cross, and the Redeemer and the Assertor of Liberty and the Assigner of bounds, and Maintainers of causes; then the production, by their Father, upon second thoughts, of the first Christ, with the Holy Spirit, subsequent to that of the Æons; lastly, how the second Christ, whom they denominate also Saviour, was put together and framed by way of contribution from them all.

But all this, they say, is not openly uttered, being all cannot receive such knowledge; however, our Saviour has mysteriously indicated it in Parables to such as have power to understand it. As for instance: the thirty Æons, they say, are indicated by the thirty years, of which we made mention before, wherein, as they observe, our Saviour did nothing openly;²¹* as also by the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard. Paul also, as they affirm, most evidently names these Æons in many places; and hath moreover observed the Order in which they follow one another,²²* when he says, Unto all the generations of the Age of all Ages: (of the Æon of all Æons). Nay, and that we too, in the Eucharist, when we utter the clause, ‘World without end’ (unto the Æon of all Æons) give signification of those Æons. In a word, wheresoever mention is made of Age or Ages, they will have it referred to the aforesaid Æons.

§ 2. They add that the origination of their band of twelve Æons is signified by our Lord’s being twelve years old,²³* when He conversed with the Doctors of the Law;²⁴* and by His choice of the Apostles, in that there were twelve of them. Again, that the other eighteen Æons are manifested by the circumstance of His abiding eighteen months, as they say, with His Disciples, after He rose from the dead. Also, that by the two first letters of His Name, the I, and the H, those eighteen Æons are clearly enough indicated; and the ten Æons in like manner they say are signified by the letter I, which stands first in His Name.²⁵* And this was the cause why our Saviour said, “one iota, or one tittle, must not pass away, till all be fulfilled.”

§ 3. As to the calamity which befel the twelfth Æon, they say it was darkly implied in the apostasy of Judas, who was twelfth among the Apostles. As also by His having suffered in the twelfth month. For they will have it that He preached for one year only after His Baptism.

They add that in the case of the woman with an issue of blood, this is most evidently set forth; in that she, having suffered twelve years, was healed by the presence of Our Saviour, upon touching the hem of His Garment; and that this was why Our Saviour said, “Who touched me?” informing His Disciples of the mysterious event among the Æons, the healing of that Æon which had become subject to Passion. For the woman who had suffered for twelve years, being in fact that Power, when its substance was being drawn out, and melting away without limit, (as they affirm), had she not touched that which He wore, that is, the Truth which makes one of the first quaternion, and of which the hem of His Garment is the symbol,—would have been resolved into that which was the ground of her being. She was stayed, however, and rested from her calamity, because the Power which went out of Him (and this they will have to be Order or Limit) healed her, and withdrew the calamity from her.

§ 4. Again, their doctrine that Our Saviour proceeding from all, is in a certain sense all, they affirm to be signified by the expression, Every male that openeth the Womb;²⁶* and that He, being All,²⁷* opened the womb of her who is the thought, or Imagination, of that afflicted Æon, the womb, I say of her who was banished from the Pleroma,—the same whom they also denominate the second Ogdoad, whereof we shall give an account a little below. And Paul also evidently for no other reason, as they affirm, used the expression, “And He is all,”²⁸* and again, “All things are to Him, and of Him are all things,”²⁹* and again, “In Him dwelleth all The Fulness (Pleroma) of the Godhead.”³⁰* And this following, “That He summed up all things in Christ,³¹* by God,” they expounded to the same effect; and if there be any thing else of the like sound.

§ 5. Next, as concerning him whom they call Order, or Limit—to whom they give so many names, affirming that he hath two modes of operation, the one apt to establish, the other to divide; and that in respect of his establishing and consolidating he is the Cross, but in respect of his dividing and distinguishing, he is Order, or Limit:—the operation of the same Order, they say, our Saviour signified as follows: that is to say, first his work of consolidating, when He says, “He that taketh not up his cross and followeth Me,³²* cannot become My Disciple;”³³* and, “Take up the cross and follow Me;” and, his distinguishing work again, where it is said, “I came not to send peace, but a sword.”³⁴* John also, according to them, indicated the same by the words,³⁵* “The fan is in His Hand, and He shall throughly purge the floor, and shall gather the wheat into His garner, but the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable.

Now in this speech also, they said there was signified the operation of Order or Limit. For that “Fan,” they expound to be the Cross, who, they add, consumes also all material things, as fire the chaff, but purges those who are saved, as the fan does the wheat.

Moreover they affirm that Paul the Apostle also, makes mention of this Cross in the text,³⁶* “For the Word of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness; but to us which are saved, it is the Power of God.”

³⁷*And again, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of Jesus^38h, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

§ 6. Such then are the sayings of them all about their Pleroma, and vain invention; violently adapting the good words to their own evil devices. And not only from the Gospels and Apostolical writings do they endeavour to make out their proofs, perverting their versions, and falsifying their expositions; but also out of the Law and the Prophets; taking occasion from the many Parables and allegories there uttered, which may be wrested many ways, others by their exposition do cleverly and craftily suit what is ambiguous to their own device, and so lead captive from the Truth all such as maintain not firmly their faith in One God the Father Almighty, and in One Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Chap. IV. § 1. Now the transactions without the Pleroma, stated by them, are as follows.

The conception of the Wisdom which is above, to which also they give the name of Achamoth, being excluded, with all Passion, from the Pleroma, and abiding in certain shadows and void places, did there of necessity, as they affirm, effervesce, being turned out of the Light, and the Pleroma, without form or kind, as an abortion, because she had not comprehended anything. Hereupon, they add, the superior Christ pitying her and overshadowing her by the intervention of him who is the Cross, did of his own power bring her into form; such form as implies resemblance to him in substance only, and not in knowledge. And having done this he has turned back, withdrawing his power, and left her to herself; in order that perceiving her calamity, in that she was separated from the Pleroma, she might aim at the things which are more excellent; having a kind of savour of incorruption, left in her by Christ and the Holy Spirit. And that this is why she is called by both names, namely, Wisdom, from her parent, (for that which produced her is called Wisdom) and the Holy Ghost, from the spirit which attends on Christ.

Further, that having received form and consciousness, but being presently left void of the Invisible Word who was with her, that is, Christ, she set herself to search out the Light which had forsaken her, but was unable to attain unto it, because she was forbidden by the power of Order (or Limit). And that at this point of time, Order, checking her in her onward impulse, uttered the word IAO (JEHOVAH); from which the Holy Name, JEHOVAH, they say, had its origin. And that she, unable to pass by the said Order, because of her being entangled with her affliction, and thus left alone without, sank under every part of her affliction, manifold and various as it was: and so had to endure, first grief, because she could not attain to her end; then fear of the Life forsaking her, even as the Light had done; and besides these perplexity, and the whole together in ignorance. And not as her mother, the first Wisdom, who is also an Æon, did she simply endure alternation in her passions, but even absolute contrariety; another tendency also having befallen her, that of conversion to him who gave her life.

§ 2. This, they say, was the composition and being of matter, out of which this world was formed. For on the one hand from this her conversion the whole soul of the world and of its Fabricator took its origin: on the other, from her tears was produced all liquid substance; from her laughter, all that is luminous; from her grief and perplexity, the bodily elements of the world. Since she was now in tears and grief, as they affirm, on account of her being left alone in the darkness and void; one while having lit upon an imagination of the light which had left her, she relaxed into a smile; and then again on the contrary she was smitten with fear; and another time she was in utter perplexity and amazement.

§ 3. And what shall I say? in this part of their subject it was all a deep tragedy, and each of them had his own fancy, pompously setting forth in their several ways, through what process and out of what element each substance had its origin. And I think they had much reason in their unwillingness to let all persons openly know of these things, and in rather reserving them for those who are able to pay a large price for the knowledge of so great mysteries; mysteries far differing from those others, concerning which our Lord said, Freely ye have received, freely give;³⁹* whereas these are retired, and prodigious, and deep, and not without much toil coming within reach of those who delight in falsehood. For who would not freely spend all his goods, to be informed, that from the tears of her who is the Conception of that Æon which suffered, seas took their origin, and fountains and rivers, and all liquid matter; and from her smile, the light; and from her amazement and utter perplexity, the solid elements of the world?

§ 4. But I have a mind myself also to contribute something to to this plentiful crop of theirs. As thus; perceiving that some waters are sweet, such as fountains, and rivers, and showers, and the like, while those in the seas are briny, it comes into my mind that they did not all emanate from her tears, the moisture of tears being of a briny quality. Clearly then the salt waters only are those which come of her tears. But it is natural to suppose that, being as she was in great agony and distress, there were sweat-drops upon her. From this then, in conformity with their theory, we ought to imagine, fountains and rivers, and whatsoever other waters are sweet, derived their origin, and not from her tears: it being incredible, since the quality of the tears is one and the same, that both the salt and sweet waters proceeded from them. But this is more credible, that the one came of her tears, the other of her sweat.… For such are the fitting fruits of their theory.

§ 5. Their Mother then, having travelled through her whole calamity, and only just begun to surmount it, betook herself, as they say, to supplication of the Light which had left her, that is, of the Christ. But he, having returned to the Pleroma, shrank, I suppose, from the trouble of descending a second time, and rather sent out to her the Comforter, that is the Saviour; the Father having yielded unto him all his power, and delivered every thing to be under his authority; and the Æons too in like manner, that in him all things should be created,⁴⁰* visible and invisible, Thrones, Deities, Dominions. He is sent forth to her, with the Angels which were formed at the same time with him.

Thereupon Achamoth, reverencing him, as they say, first put on a veil out of bashfulness; but afterwards beholding him with all his rich shew of fruit, hastened towards him, receiving power to do so, by his manifestation. He, they say, reduced her into form, with such formation as implies perfect knowledge, and acheived the healing of her passions. He separated them from her; he did not entirely neglect them; to annihilate them being impossible, because now they were habitual and strong. But he put them apart by themselves, then mingled and consolidated them, and changed them from incorporal accidents⁴¹⁹ into matter still incorporeal. Next accordingly he wrought in them aptitude and a peculiar nature, that they might enter into combinations and bodies: so that two substances might come into being; the one bad, liable to the Passions; the other intelligent, capable of Conversion. And for this cause, they say that our Saviour was virtually the Framer of the Universe.

Moreover that Achamoth being delivered from her trouble, and obtaining with that joy the contemplation of the lights that were with Him, that is, of the Angels, his companions, and smitten with longing for them, became pregnant, (so they teach) with offspring after their image: a spiritual offspring, formed after the resemblance of those were the body-guards of our Saviour.

Chap. V. § 1. Having now therefore these three ingredients given her, by their account: the first proceeding from Passion, which was matter; the second from a tendency to recovery, which was the animal part; the third that which she bore, that is, the spiritual part; she next applied herself to the forming thereof. However, the spiritual part she was unable herself to reduce into form, being herself of the same substance with it. But she betook herself to the formation of the animal substance which arose from her tendency to recovery, and so brought to light the instructions she had received from the Saviour.

Now her first formation out of the animal substance, they say, was the Father and King of all things; both of such as are of the same substance with himself, that is, the animal, the same which they call also things on the right hand; and of those also which owe their origin to passion and matter, the same which they say are on the left. For all things akin to himself⁴²¹, they say, he formed, unconsciously moved thereto by his Mother: whence also they give him the names of Metropator, and Unfathered, and Artificer, and Father: affirming him to be Father of things on the right, that is, animal, but of those on the left, that is, material, Artificer; and of all taken together, King.

For the aforesaid Enthymesis [or Achamoth], they say, desired to do all to the honour of the Æons, and therefore made certain images of them; or rather the Saviour did so by her. And she reserved herself to be in the image of the invisible Father, she not being known by the Demiurgus [or Artificer]; while he was to represent the only-begotten Son, and the images of the other Æons were to be the Archangels and Angels formed by him.

§ 2. He then, by their account, became Father and God of things without the Pleroma, being maker of all, both animal and material. For that he separated those two substances, before confused, and brought the incorporeal into bodily shape, and so framed both heavenly and earthly things, and became their Artificer, whether material or animal, on the right hand or on the left, light or heavy, of upward or of downward tendency: he having furnished seven Heavens, above which, they say, is the Demiurgus himself. And therefore they call him the Hebdomad, but his mother Achamoth the Ogdoad, she thus keeping entire the number of the original and first Ogdoad, belonging to the Pleroma.

Further; as to these seven heavens, which they say, are endowed with understanding, they suppose them to be a kind of Angels, and the Demiurgus too himself an angel like unto God. As they say also that Paradise, being above the third heaven, is virtually a fourth angel, and that Adam obtained I know not what from it, in consequence of his abode therein.

§ 3. Moreover, they say that the Demiurgus fancied himself to be framing these things of himself, but that in reality he made them by virtue which came out from Achamoth: so that Heaven was made by him, not knowing heaven; and man was moulded, he not knowing man; and Earth manifested, while he was unacquainted with Earth. And throughout in like manner they say he was ignorant of the substantial forms of what he was making, and of his mother herself, and fancied that he himself alone was all. And the cause of this his imagination, they affirm, was his mother, whose will it had been so to train him up to be head and principle of his own proper substance, and director of this whole work. Which mother of his they call also the Ogdoad, and Wisdom, and Earth, and Jerusalem, and the Holy Spirit, and in the masculine, Lord. Her home, they say, is in the intermediate space, so that she abides above the Demiurgus, but beneath or without the Pleroma, until the consummation.

§ 4. The material substance then being, as they say, made out of three passions or affections, fear, and grief, and perplexity; they will have it that the partakers of animal life owe their subsistence partly to fear and partly to an effort after recovery; that from this effort the Demiurgus had his birth; but from fear, all other being that has animal life, as the souls of irrational creatures, and of beasts, and men. Wherefore that he, wanting energy to discern any spiritual things, considered himself alone to be God, and said by his Prophets, I am God, beside Me there is none.⁴³* From grief again they teach that the spiritual powers of wickedness proceeded; that hence the Devil had his origin, whom also they call the Ruler of this world, his demons too, and his angels, and all that spiritually exists on the side of wickedness. The Demiurgus however they call the son of that Mother of theirs, but the Ruler of this world, a creature of the Demiurgus. And that the Ruler of the world knows the things above him, because he is a spirit of wickedness; but the Demiurgus knows them not, as having merely an animal existence.

The abode of their Mother they say is the super celestial region, that is, in the intermediate space; of the Demiurgus, in the heavenly, that is, in the series of seven heavens; of the Ruler of the world, in this world of ours.

Further: that from that astonishment and extreme perplexity as from the meaner passions, the corporeal elements of the world, as we stated before, had their origin; Earth, upon the stay of that amazement; Water, upon the exciting of Fear; air, upon the fixing (or condensation) of grief. Fire, they say, existed in them all to be a cause of death and decay, even as ignorance was secretly mingled in those three passions.

§ 5. Thus having formed the world, he created also the earthly man, not however out of this dry earth, but out of its invisible substance, taking his material from that which is continually exhaled and flowing [from the grosser being]. And into this earthly man as they carefully distinguish, he breathed the animal man. And this, they say, was the man formed after his image, and similitude: the material man being after his image, like but not consubstantial with, his God; while the animal man was after his likeness; for which cause also his substance is called the Spirit of Life, coming of a spiritual efflux [from Him]. But afterwards, they say, the coat of skins was put on him; and this, they say, is the frail flesh, the object of sense.

§ 6. But the offspring of their Mother Achamoth, whereof she became pregnant in her contemplation of the Angels which waited on the Saviour, being of the same substance with the Mother-spiritual,—was unknown even to the Demiurgus, as they affirm. And they say it was secretly lodged in him without his consciousness, in order that by him having been sown in the soul which he made, and in this material body, and having therein, like an unborn babe received growth, it might be made ready to admit the perfect Word.

That spiritual Man therefore was unknown, as they say, to the Demiurgus, who was sown by Wisdom in the natural man at the moment of his breathing into his nostrils, and that through an ineffable Providence. For as he knew not his Mother, so neither did he know her seed. And this same seed they affirm also to be the Church, corresponding to the Church above.

And with this they maintain their inward being to be completed; as though they had their animal soul from the Demiurgus, their body from the dust of the Earth, and their fleshly part from its matter, while the spiritual Man comes from their Mother Achamoth.

Chap. VI. § 1. There being then three principles; the material, first of all, which they call also that on the left hand, necessarily, as they affirm, perishes, as being incapable of receiving any breath of incorruption. But the animal principle, which they denominate likewise that on the right hand, as being midway between the spiritual and material, departs in that direction, towards which it makes itself incline. As to the spiritual part, they say it is sent forth, in order that being here joined to the animal, it may be fashioned, sharing the discipline thereof in its conversation here. And this they say is the salt and the light of the world.⁴⁴* For the animal principle had need of outward and sensible discipline of various kinds. By such they say, the world itself was framed, and what is more, that the Saviour came to the aid of this, the animal part, it having also free will, that he might save it.

For, of those, whom he was to save, they affirm, he took on him the firstfruits: from Achamoth assuming the spiritual principle, from the Demiurgus the animal Christ wherewith he clothed himself; and by that peculiar dispensation putting on a body which had an animal being, but was constructed by unspeakable art, so as to be both visible and palpable and capable of suffering. They add, that he took not on him any thing at all material; matter not being capable of salvation.

As to the end of the world, they say it will be, when the whole spiritual creation is formed and perfected in knowledge; meaning those of mankind who are spiritual, who have the perfect knowledge concerning God, and are initiated by Achamoth into her mysteries. And these, they imagine, are themselves.

§ 2. For mere animal lessons are the discipline of mere animal men, of those who are established by bare faith and works, and possess not the perfect knowledge. And this account they give of us, who belong to the Church, which is the reason why they also affirm good conduct to be necessary for us, since otherwise we cannot be saved. As to themselves, they maintain that not by any course of conduct, but because they are by nature spiritual, they shall in any case and by all means be saved. For as the earthly cannot attain salvation (not being as they say capable of it) so again the spiritual, which they will have to be themselves, never can admit corruption, whatsoever actions they may be engaged in. For even as gold deposited in mud does not cast off its beauty, but keeps its proper nature, the mud having no power to damage the gold at all: just so they affirm of themselves, that whatever kind of material actions they may be concerned in, they are not at all damaged themselves, nor do they cast away their spiritual subsistence.

§ 3. For which cause also the most perfect among them do all forbidden things without fear; such things whereof the scriptures are positive, that they who do them shall not inherit God’s Kingdom. Thus, in the first place, they eat indifferently of things sacrificed to idols, not esteeming themselves at all stained thereby. And at every holiday amusement of the Gentiles, taking place in honour of the idols, they are first to assemble; some of them not even abstaining from that murderous spectacle, hated by God and man, of combats with wild beasts, and of single fight. Others again, who are the slaves of all fleshly pleasures, even unto loathing, say that “The carnal things are for the carnal, and the spiritual things for the spiritual, being so assigned.” Some of them privately corrupt the women who are instructed by them in this doctrine; as many times certain have confessed, together with the rest of their error; such I mean as had been seduced by one or other of them, and had afterwards returned to the Church of God. Others even publickly, casting off all shame, whatsoever women they have a fancy for, they force away from their husbands and account their own wives. A third sort again, pretending at first to live in all honour, as with sisters, in process of time have been exposed; the sister becoming pregnant by the brother.

§ 4. Yea, and they have many other abominable and godless practices. And while they run down us, who keep ourselves through the fear of God, from sinning so much as in thought or word, for being unlearned and knowing nothing; themselves they magnify above measure, under the names of Perfect, and Seeds of Election. For we, they affirm, receive Grace to be used only; and therefore it will be taken from us^45k. But they have their grace as a possession of their own, having come down from above, from the Unspeakable and Unnameable Combination⁴⁶¹; and therefore it will be added unto them.

For which cause, they add, it is right for them in every way, to be always practising the mystery of Combination. And of this they convince the foolish, their words being literally such as these: “Whosoever being merely in the world,^47l hath not loved a woman, so as that she should give way to him, is not of the Truth, and shall not proceed unto the Truth: but he that, being of the world, is overcome by a woman, shall not proceed unto the Truth, because he is overcome by desire of woman.” For this cause accordingly they call us “good sort of natural men,” and say that we are “of the world,” and that we “have need of continence and of good conduct,” that we may come thereby into the intermediate space; but they, ‘Spiritual’ and ‘Perfect,’ as they are called, have no such need. For it is not any conduct which brings men into the Pleroma, but that seed which is sent out from thence in an infant state, and is here brought to perfection.

Chap. VII. § 1. Now when the whole seed is made perfect, Achamoth their mother, they say, is to pass from the Intermediate Place, and to enter within the Pleroma, and to receive her Spouse the Saviour, him who was made up of all^48m; that there may be a Combination of the Saviour, and of Wisdom, who is Achamoth. And this, they say, is the meaning of the “Bridegroom,” and “Bride;” the Bridechamber being the whole Pleroma.

Next, that all spiritual persons putting off their animal souls, and becoming intellectual spirits, are to enter within the Pleroma, incomprehensibly⁴⁹² and invisibly, and to be assigned as the Brides to the Angels which are about the Saviour; and that the Demiurge also for his part is to pass into the region of his mother, Wisdom, that is, in the intermediate state; that the souls also of the righteous will themselves be refreshed in the place of the middle state; for that nothing animal finds place within the Pleroma.

Moreover, that when all this has so taken place, the fire which lurks in the world is to shine forth and be kindled, and destroying all Matter, is itself to be spent together with it, and to come to an end of its existence:—so they say. But the Demiurge knew none of these things, as they assert, before the coming of the Saviour.

§ 2. And there are some who say that he also produced a Christ, a son of his own, of animal nature however; that concerning him he spake by the Prophets. And that this was he who passed through Mary, as water passes through a pipe; and that to him at his baptism descended that other, that Saviour from the Pleroma, made up of all, in the form of a Dove. And there was in him also the same spiritual seed of Achamoth. Our Lord therefore they affirm to have been composed of these four, keeping the pattern of the original and first Quaternion: viz. of the Spiritual being, which was from Achamoth; and of the animal which was from the Demiurge; and of the Œconomy—that which was framed with unspeakable art; and of the Saviour, which part was the Dove that descended upon Him. And that as to this part he remained impassive (for he could not suffer, being incomprehensible and invisible); and therefore, they say, it was taken away, when he was brought before Pilate, I mean the Spirit of Christ which had been lodged in him. But neither did the seed suffer, which he had from his mother, by their statement; for this also, the spiritual part of him, is impassive, and invisible even to the Demiurge himself. It remains that what suffered, according to them, was the animal Christ, and he who by the Economy was mysteriously framed, that his Mother might exhibit by him⁵⁰ⁿ the pattern of the Christ who is above, of him who was extended upon the Cross, and who gave to Achamoth her essential form. For all things here, they say, are types of the things there.

§ 3. Now the souls which had the seed of Achamoth, were better, they say, than the rest. Wherefore also the Demiurge loves them more than the rest, not knowing the reason, but accounting such to be from himself: and so, they add, he ordained them to be, some Prophets, some Priests, some Kings; (and many things by virtue of this seed they expound to be spoken by the Prophets;) as though those souls were of a higher nature. And his Mother too they affirm to have uttered many things concerning that superior world; partly however through him, and partly through the souls that were made by him. And they proceed to divide the Prophecies; one thing, as they will have it, being uttered by the Mother, another by the seed aforesaid, a third by the Demiurge. Yea, and that Jesus also in like manner uttered some things by virtue of the Saviour, some of his Mother, some of the Demiurge; as we shall explain in the progress of our argument.

§ 4. Further; the Demiurge, they say, as being ignorant of the the things above him, although not insensible to what was thus uttered, yet thought little of them, imagining now one cause and now another; either the prophesying Spirit (as though it had also a sort of movement of its own); or man; or the adhesion of the inferior beings: and he continued in this ignorance until the coming of the Lord. But when the Saviour was come, they say that from Him he learned all things, approaching Him, and that with a willing mind, with all his power; and that he is the centurion in the Gospel, who says to our Saviour,⁵¹* For I too have under my own authority soldiers and slaves, and whatsoever I command, they do; but that he will himself accomplish the economy of the world until the appointed time, and that chiefly because of his care of the church, partly however through his having come to the knowledge of the reward prepared for him, that is, his being to pass into the region of his Mother.

§ 5. Of men, moreover, they constitute three sorts, Spiritual, Earthly, Animal: such as were Cain, Abel, Seth: and from^52o these the three Natures, having passed from individuals into classes^53p. And the earthly, they say, goes into corruption; and the Animal, if it choose the better part, rests in the place of the middle state, but if the worse, it also will go to its like. But the spiritual beings, whatsoever Achamoth may have sown, from that time even until now, in righteous souls, are first educated and fully nurtured here, as having been sent out in an infantile state; but hereafter are to have perfection vouchsafed to them, and to be assigned as Brides to the Angels of the Saviour. This is their doctrine; and they add that their souls will have thoroughly rested the while of necessity in the middle state with the Demiurge. And the souls too themselves they again subdivide, saying, Some are naturally good, some naturally bad; the good being these, which are filled to receive that seed, while those which are naturally bad never could exhibit that seed in themselves.

Chap. VIII. § 1. Now such being their Theory⁵⁴³, which neither Prophets proclaimed, nor the Lord taught, nor Apostles delivered; whereby they flatter themselves that they know more concerning the universe than all others, reading it, out of what was never written, and as the saying is, studying to twist ropes out of sand; they endeavour plausibly to accommodate to what has been said either Parables of our Lord, or prophetic sayings or discourses of the Apostles, that their fiction may not appear to be without witness. The order indeed and connection of the Scriptures they overpass, and as much as in them lies, disjoin the members of the Truth. And they transfer and transform, and make one thing out of another, and so deceive many, by their perverse skill in tacking together the Lord’s oracles which they so apply. Much as if there were an image of a king, made beautiful out of brilliant pebbles by some skilful artificer, and one should do away with the form of man which exists in it, and transfer those pebbles, and re-adapt them; and when he had made a form of a dog, or a fox, and that vilely put together, should then definitively affirm this to be that beautiful Image of the King which the skilful Artist constructed; pointing out the pebbles which were well combined by the first work-man to make the Image of the King, but ill transferred by the later one into the form of a dog: and as if by the vain shew⁵⁵⁴ of the pebbles he should beguile the more unskilful, such as have no conception of a royal form, and persuade them that this unsound form of a fox is that same beautiful image of the King. In the same way, I say, these also, having stitched together some old women’s fables, then drag off from this quarter and that words and sayings and parables; endeavouring to adapt the Oracles of God to their fables.

§ 2. Now as to their adaptations to things within^56q the Pleroma, we have said enough. As to those Scriptural truths which they try to accommodate also to the things without their Pleroma, they are such as follow. The Lord, they say, came for this purpose to His Passion in the last times of the world, that He might exhibit the passion which occurred to the last of the Æons; and by the end thereof might declare the end of the transaction concerning the Æons.⁵⁷* Again, that Virgin of twelve years old, the Ruler of the Synagogue’s daughter, whom the Lord approached and raised from the dead, is a type, by their account, of Achamoth, whom their Christ, extended over her, brought into form, and into perception of the light which had forsaken her. Again, of Christ’s shewing Himself to her, being without the Pleroma, in the state of an abortion, they affirm Paul to have said in his epistle to the Corinthians, “And last of all, as to one born out of due time, He appeared unto me also.⁵⁸* Also the Saviour’s coming to Achamoth with his equals, they say, was declared in like manner by him in the same Epistle where he says,⁵⁹* The woman ought to have a covering on her head, because of the Angels. And that on the Saviour’s coming to her, Achamoth for bashfulness put on a veil, Moses they say made manifest, by putting the veil upon his face. And her passions too, which she suffered, they say that the Lord signified on the Cross. As first, that in saying. My God why hast Thou forsaken Me,⁶⁰* He signified that Wisdom was forsaken of the Light, and was hindered by Order from rushing forward. Next, that in speaking of her grief, He said, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.⁶¹* And of her fear, saying, Father, if it be possible,⁶²* let this cup pass from Me. And of her perplexity, when He said, And what I shall say, I know not^63r.

§ 3. And the three kinds of men, they teach He thus pointed out:⁶⁴* the material, in saying, The Son of Man hath not where to lay his head: to him that asked him, Let me follow Thee, the animal, in replying,⁶⁵* No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of Heaven, to him that said, I will follow Thee, but suffer me first to bid farewell to those in my house. For he, they say, was the middle sort of person.⁶⁶* And that other too in like manner who professed to have done the most parts of righteousness, and then would not follow Him, but was overcome by wealth, so as not to be made perfect, he too, they will have it, belonged to the animal sort. But the spiritual he signified, by saying, Suffer the dead to bury their own dead,⁶⁷* but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God. And in the case of Zaccheus the Publican,⁶⁸* by saying, Make haste and come down, for to day I must abide in thine house. These, I say, they state to have been of the spiritual sort. And the Parable of the Leaven, which the woman is said to have hid in three measures of meal, they say, means the three kinds. For Wisdom they teach to be expressed by a woman, by measures of meal, the three kinds of men, spiritual, animal, earthly. As to leaven, they teach it to be a name of the Saviour Himself. And that Paul expressly spoke of persons temporal, animal, spiritual: in one place;⁶⁹* As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy;⁷⁰* in another, The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit; in another, A spiritual man judgeth all things.⁷¹* And the saying, The animal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit, they say is uttered concerning the Demiurge;—that he, being natural, knew not either his Mother who is spiritual, nor her seed, nor the Æons in the Pleroma. But that whom the Saviour meant to save, of those He took the first fruits, Paul they say affirmed in the words, And if the first fruit be holy, so is the lump:⁷²* affirming that by the first fruit the spiritual part is intended, and that the lump means us; that is, the animal Church; the lump whereof they say He took up, and gathered up in Himself, as being Himself Leaven.

§ 4. And that Achamoth wandered without the Pleroma, and was put in form by Christ, and sought out by the Saviour, they say He signified by declaring, that He had come after that which was lost.⁷³* For the lost sheep they expound to mean their Mother, of whom they will have the Church here to be sown; and her wandering, her abode in passions without the Pleroma; whereby they suppose matter to have been formed.⁷⁴* And the woman that sweeps the house, and finds the piece of silver, they say is the supernal Wisdom, who having lost that which she had conceived in her mind, finds it afterwards, when all things are cleansed by the coming of our Saviour: wherefore this also is restored, as they say, to be within the Pleroma.⁷⁵* And Symeon who took Christ into his arms, and gave thanks unto Him, and said, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, they say, is a type of the Demiurge, how that when the Saviour came he learned about his own removal, and gave thanks unto Bythus.⁷⁶* And by Anna the Prophetess whose name is rehearsed in the gospel, who lived seven years with a husband, and all the rest of her time remained a widow, until seeing the Saviour she recognized Him, and spoke of Him to all, they lay it down that Achamoth is most evidently signified; who for a little while saw the Saviour with His companions, and all her time after was expecting Him, (remaining in the Middle State) when He shall come again, and restore her to the partnership she belongs to. And that her name too was indicated by the Saviour, in His saying, and wisdom is justified of her children.⁷⁷* And by Paul toe, thus: But we speak wisdom among them that are perfect.⁷⁸* And the marriages that are within the Pleroma, they say, Paul spoke of, signifying them in one instance. For writing concerning the marriage which is in this life,⁷⁹* he said, This mystery is great; but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.

§ 5. And moreover John, the Disciple of our Lord, by their teaching, indicated the first Ogdoad, these being their very words: “John the Disciple of the Lord, meaning to speak of the generation of all things, wherein the Father produced them all, supposes a beginning, the first thing begotten of God; the same whom he called both the Only Begotten Son, and God, in whom the Father produced all as from seed. And by him he saith that the Word was produced, and in Him the whole substance of the Æons, which the Word himself afterwards reduced to form. Since then he speaks of the first birth, well does he frame his instruction from the beginning, that is, from God, and the Word. And thus he speaks:⁸⁰* In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; He was in the beginning with God. Having before distinguished the three, God, and the Beginning, and the Word, he again unites them: to indicate at the same time the emanation of each of them,—of the Son and the Word, and their union also with one another and with the Father. For in the Father and of the Father is the Beginning, and of the Beginning is the Word. Well therefore said he¹⁰, In the beginning was the Word; for he was in the Son: and the Word was with God; for so was the Beginning: and the Word was God, by way of inference: for that which is begotten of God, is God. The same was in the Beginning with God, pointed out the order of the Production.⁸¹* All things were made by Him, and without Him was not any thing made: that is, to all Æons after him the Word was the cause of Form and Birth. But (saith he) That which took place in him is Life. Here He hath given tokens again of a Combination [of Æons]^82s: in saying that all things were made by Him, but that “Life is in Him.” This Life then which took place in Him is more properly His own⁸³⁵, being within Him, than the things which are wrought by Him; for they exist with Him, and by Him bear fruit.⁸⁴* And since he adds “and the Life was the Light of men,” by expressing the term Man, he signified also the Church under the same title with Man, so by the one name to set forth the communion of the two which make up the pair. For “of the Word and Life are produced the Man and the Church.” And He calls the Life the Light of men, because they are enlightened thereby, that is, formed and manifested. And this Paul also speaks of:⁸⁵* “For whatsoever doth make manifest is Light.” Accordingly since the Church and the Man were manifested and brought into being by the Life, therefore he is called their Light.

Upon the whole, John in these statements hath clearly set forth, among other things, the second quaternion, The word and the life, The man and the Church. Yea, and he hath indicated also the first quaternion. For speaking of the Saviour, and affirming that all things without the Pleroma were formed by Him, he declares Him to be the fruit of the whole Pleroma. Thus for instance, he denominates Him the Light shining in the darkness, and not comprehended by it, because it knew Him not, when He had repaired⁸⁶⁶ all the results of the great calamity. And he calls Him Son too, and Truth, and Life, and the Word made Flesh. “Whose glory,” saith he, “we beheld, and His Glory was such as of the Only-Begotten, given Him by the Father, full of Grace and Truth.” His words being,⁸⁷* “And the Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” Thus hath he accurately indicated the first quaternion also, using the terms Father, and Grace, and the Only-Begotten, and Truth. And so John hath made mention of the First Ogdoad, or Combination of Eight, and Mother of all the Æons; in that he hath spoken of a Father, and Grace, and an Only-Begotten, and Truth, and the Word, and Life, and the Man and the Church.”

Chap. IX. § 1. Thou seest, dearly beloved, their craft, which they that use deceive themselves, dealing rudely with the Scriptures, in their endeavours to make good out of them their own fiction. And this is why I have adduced their very words, that by them thou mightest discern their cunning craftiness, and wicked misleading.

For, first, had it been John’s purpose to speak indirectly of their Eight that are on high, he would have kept the order of the emanation; and the first Quaternion, being, by their statement, the most venerable, he would have set down in his first enumeration; and so would have subjoined the second; that by the order of the names, the order of the Eight might be indicated. And he would not, after so great an interval, as though upon forgetting and afterwards recollecting, have mentioned the first quaternion in the very conclusion.

Next, had he really meant to signify their Combinations, he would not have left out the name of the Church also: but would either have contented himself in the other pairs, with naming the Males, the others being to be equally understood, that the Unify might be kept by him in all things^88t. Or, if he had reckoned up the partners of the rest, he would have indicated also the Man’s partner, and would not have left us to find out her name by divination.

§ 2. Manifest then is the perversity of their exposition. For whereas John is proclaiming One God Almighty, and One Only Begotten Christ Jesus, by Whom, he saith, all things were made;—that He is the Son of God, He the Only Begotten, He the Maker of all things, He the True Light, enlightening every man, He the Maker of the world;—that He came to His own, that He Himself was made flesh and dwelt among us: these men, plausibly wresting their interpretation, will have one person to be the Only Begotten by way of Emanation, whom also they call, as it seems, the Beginning; but the Saviour, they will have it, was by origin another; and that the Word, the Son of the Only Begotten, was different from the Christ, who was put forth^89u to reform the Pleroma. Yea, each one of the terms which have been mentioned, they have taken up, and abusing the names, have transferred them to their own purpose⁹⁰⁷. So that, according to them, in so many words John makes no mention^91x of the Lord Jesus Christ. For though he hath spoken of a Father, and of Grace, and of the Only-Begotten, and of Truth, and of the Word, and of Life, and of Man, and of the Church; by their supposition he spake of the first Eight, among whom Jesus is not yet, not yet Christ the teacher of John.

But that the Apostle spake not of their Combinations, but of our Lord Jesus Christ, Whom also He recognizes as The Word of God; he hath himself made manifest. For in his recapitulation, concerning the Word Whom he had mentioned above in the beginning, he concludes, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” But by their supposition, the Word was not made flesh, (seeing that He never so much as passed without the Pleroma,) but the offspring of the Economy, born^92y after the Word, the Saviour.

§ 3. Learn therefore, O ye fools, that Jesus Who suffered for us, Who dwelt among us, This same is the Word of God. For had any other of the Æons become flesh for our proper salvation, it was natural for the Apostle to have spoken of another. But if the Word of the Father Who descended, is the same also Who ascended, the Only-Begotten Son of the Only God, by the Father’s good pleasure incarnate in men’s behalf; not of any other, nor of any company of Eight, did he introduce that discourse, but only of the Lord Jesus Christ. For in fact the Word, by their account, was not in any proper sense made Flesh; but the Saviour,⁹³⁸ they say, clothed Himself with an animal body, framed according to His dispensation with ineffable foresight, that He might become visible and palpable. But Flesh means the old formation, that which God made out of the dust of the earth, as we read concerning Adam; which flesh John hath told us that the Word of God truly became. So is there an end of their first and aboriginal Eight. For when we have shewn that one and the same Person is the Word, and the Only-Begotten, and Life, and Light, and the Saviour and Christ, and the Son of God, and He too incarnate for us, the framework of their Ogdoad is done away. And on its dissolution, their whole system falls to pieces;—the system of their own invention, which they falsely dreaming of, inveigh against the Scriptures.

§ 4. Then, collecting phrases and terms that lie here and there, they transfer them, as we said before, from the natural to the unnatural; doing much the same as those who at their own pleasure express any given meaning, and then endeavour to make it out⁹⁴⁹ from the poems of Homer: whereupon the less informed sort imagine, that Homer made his verses on that subject, thus freshly wrought out; and many, by the connected run of the verses, are surprised into a thought, whether this as they find it be not indeed Homer’s composition: as he who in Homeric verses thus describes Hercules sent by Eurystheus for the dog in hell:—(for there is nothing to forbid our rehearsing these too, for example’s sake, the endeavour being in both cases alike and the same.)

He spake; and forth with many a deep groan went

Bold Hercules, for mighty deeds renown’d,

By Perseus’ offspring, proud Eurystheus, sent

To drag from Erebus stern Pluto’s hound:

As mountain lion fearless, on he moved,—

Swift through the town; and with him troops of friends,

Nymphs, maidens, sires in many a peril proved,—

With plaintive wail, as who to death descends:

But Hermes, with Minerva, watch’d his way,

For in his heart he mourn’d his brother’s evil day^95z.—

Which of the simple ones would not be carried away by these verses, and imagine that Homer had so composed them on this very subject? whereas he who is versed in Homer’s subject will recognize the verses, but the subject he will not recognize; aware that one portion of them is spoken of Ulysses, another of Hercules himself, another of Priam, another of Menelaus and Agamemnon. And by removing them and restoring each to its own place, he will quite make the subject disappear.

And so too, he that keeps unswerving in himself the rule of the Truth which he received by his Baptism, will recognize^96a the names out of the Scriptures, and the sayings, and the parables, but this blasphemous argument he will not recognize. For though he acknowledge the gems, yet the Fox instead of the royal Image he will not receive.^97b But, by assigning every statement to its proper place, and adapting it to the body^98c of the truth, he will expose their fiction and exhibit its unreality.

§ 5. Since however this stage-play wants the regular words of Dismissal^99d, that having finished their plot, one may subjoin the refutation; we have thought it well to point out first, wherein the parents themselves of this fable vary from each other, as being of various spirits of Error. For indeed one may hereby accurately discern, even before our proof, the certainty of the truth proclaimed by the Church, and their perverted¹⁰⁰¹ and false statement.

Chap. X. § 1. For, as to the Church, dispersed as she is through the whole world unto the ends of the earth, yet having received from the Apostles and their disciples the Faith in One God the Father Almighty,¹⁰¹* Who made the Heaven and the earth and the seas and all that is therein; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, Who was made flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Ghost, Who by the Prophets declared the Œconomies, and the Advents, and the Birth of a Virgin, and the Passion, and the Rising from the dead, and the bodily Ascension into Heaven of the Beloved, Christ Jesus our Lord, and His Coming from the Heavens in the glory of the Father, to sum up all things¹⁰²² and to raise up all flesh of all human nature; that to Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, and Saviour and King, according to the good pleasure of the Invisible Father,¹⁰³* every knee may bow, of things in Heaven and in Earth and under the Earth, and that every tongue may confess to Him, and He may administer just judgment to them all; that is,¹⁰⁴* may both send into the everlasting fire the spiritual things of wickedness, as well angels that have transgressed and passed into revolt, as the ungodly and unjust and lawless and blasphemous among men; and also to the righteous and holy, and to such as have kept His commandments and persevered in His love, whether from the first or after penitency, may freely give life, grant incorruption, and compass for them eternal glory:—

§ 2. This preaching and this faith, the Church, as we said before, dispersed as she is in the whole world, keeps diligently, as though she dwelt but in one house:¹⁰⁵* and her belief herein is just as if she had one only soul, and the same heart, and she proclaims and teaches and delivers these things harmoniously, as possessing one mouth. Thus, while the languages of the world differ, the tenor of the tradition is one and the same. And neither have the Churches situated in the regions of Germany believed otherwise, nor do they hold any other tradition, neither in the parts of Spain, nor among the Celts, nor in the East, nor in Egypt, nor in Libya, nor those which are situate in the middle parts of the world. But as the Sun, the creature of God, is in all the world one and the same; so also the preaching of the Truth shines every where, and enlightens all men who wish to come to the knowledge of the Truth. And neither he who is altogether mighty in speech among those who preside in our Churches, will utter any thing different from this (for no man is above his Master);¹⁰⁶* nor will he who is weak in discourse abate aught of the Tradition. Yea, the Faith being one and the same, neither he that is able to speak much of it hath any thing over,¹⁰⁷* nor hath he that speaks but little, any lack.

§ 3. And as to some knowing more, some less, in the way of understanding, this happens not by any change in the subject itself, nor by any additional device of another god, besides the Artificer, and Maker, and Nourisher of this universe, as if men were not satisfied^108e with This One; nor of another Christ, or another Only-Begotten: but by their working out such things as are uttered in Parables, and fitting them to the scheme of the Faith; or again, by their fuller expression of the conduct¹⁰⁹³ and dispensation of God, such it hath been towards human nature; or in setting out God’s long-suffering, both towards the revolt of the Angels who transgressed, and towards the disobedience of men: or in declaring why some things were made temporal and some eternal, some earthly and some heavenly, by one and the same God: or in perceiving why God, being invisible, shewed Himself to the Prophets, not in one form only, but diversely to divers: or in pointing out why more than one Testament has been made with mankind and teaching what is the special mark of each of these Testaments: or in searching out why God shut up all things^110f in unbelief,¹¹¹* that He might have mercy on all men: er in thanking Him for the purpose of the Word of God in becoming flesh and suffering: or in declaring why the coming of the Son of God is made manifest in the last times, that is, in the end, being as it is the Beginning; or in unfolding whatever is contained in the Scriptures concerning the end, and the things to come; also in not keeping silence as to the cause of God’s making the rejected nations to be fellow-heirs and of one body,¹¹²* and partakers with the saints: or in proclaiming how this poor mortal flesh shall put on immortality and the corruptible incorruption:¹¹³* and in proclaiming how He saith,¹¹⁴* That which is not a people, is a people, and she who is not beloved is beloved;¹¹⁵* and how the children of the desolate are more than of her that hath an husband. For in regard of these things,¹¹⁶* and such as are like them, did the Apostle exclaim, Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgements, and His ways past finding out!—and not as perversely devising one above the Creator and Artificer, their own Mother and His, the mental Fruit¹¹⁷⁴ of a stray Æon, and in proceeding to such a point of blasphemy: nor in feigning again the Pleroma above her, sometimes thirty^118g Æons, sometimes an innumerable tribe: as these teachers affirm, who are truly void of Divine understanding; whereas the real Church hath all one and the same faith throughout the world, as we have said before.

Chap. XI. § 1. Let us now take a view also of the unstable mind of these men being as they are some two or three, how they make not the same statements on the same subjects, but in their matter and their terms contradict one another.

Thus he who first adapted his principles, from the heresy called Gnostic, to the peculiar stamp of his school, namely Valentinus, bare his dry fruit^119h as follows. He defined that there is a Duad which cannot be named, whereof the one part is called Ineffable, the other Silence. Then that from this Duad there emanated another Duad, whereof the one part he calls Father, the other Truth. And that from this quaternion are produced the Word and the Life, the Man and the Church. And that this is the first Ogdoad. And from the Word indeed and the Life ten powers, he says, emanated, as we said before, but from the Man and the Church, twelve: whereof one revolted and failed, and so occasioned the rest of the transaction. And he supposed two beings called Horos or Limit, one between Bythus and the rest of the Pleroma, separating the Æons, born in time from the Unoriginate Father; and another, him that separates their mother from the Pleroma. And that Christ too emanated not from the Æons in the Pleroma, but that by his Mother, being put out according to the mind of the superior powers, he was produced, with a kind of shadow. And that he indeed, as being male, severed the shadow from him, and hastened back to the Pleroma; but his Mother being left behind with the shadow, and despoiled of her spiritual substance, produced another son, and that this is the Demiurge, whom also he styles Almighty over the things subject to him. And that together with him was brought forth a Ruler also on the left hand, was part of his doctrine, as of theirs whom we shall have to speak of, falsely called Gnostics. And Jesus, he sometimes says, emanated from him who withdrew himself from their mother, and infused himself among all things, i.e. from Theletus: sometimes again from him that hastened back to the Pleroma, that is, from Christ: and sometimes from the Man and the Church. And the Holy Spirit too he says emanated from the Church to search out the Æons and make them fruitful, invisibly entering into them; by whom the Æons bear fruit, even the plants of the Truth.

§ 2. Secundus says that the first Ogdoad is a quaternion on the right and a quaternion on the left, with a tradition that they are thus denominated; the one Light and the other Darkness. And that the Power which revolted and failed was not of the 30 Æons but of those whom they produced.

§ 3. And a certain other teacher of theirs, who is also Epiphanes¹²⁰ⁱ, reaching forward to somewhat higher and of more perfect knowledge, affirmed the first Quaternion thus: “There is before all things a certain Proarché (i.e. First Beginning) inconceivable from the first, unspeakable and unnameable, which I account to be Onlyness. With this Onlyness co-exists a power, which I name for its part also Oneness. This Oneness, and Onlyness, constituting absolute Unity, emitted, yet without emitting, a Principle over all, the object of thought only, unbegotten and unseen; which principle their speech calls an Unit. With this Unit co-exists a power of the same substance with it, which also I denominate Unity. These Powers, Onlyness and Oneness, the Unit and Unity, emitted the other emanations which make up the Æons.”

§ 4. Ho, Ho! Alas, alas! For truly one may well utter the Tragical cry, at such a coining of names, and such audacity; at his having so shamelessly put a name to his own figment. For by his saying, “There is a certain first beginning before all, before and above comprehension, which I call Onlyness:” and again, “With this Onlyness co-exists a power, which I also call Oneness:” he hath most distinctly avowed both the statement to be his own coining, and that he did himself put names to what he had coined, such as no other had imposed before. And it is plain that of himself he ventured to give these names. And if he had not been in life, the Truth would have had no name. Nothing therefore hinders, but that some other also, on the same plan, may define names as follows. “^121k There is a kind of first beginning, royal, before and above comprehension, a power before and above substance, rolling itself ever onward. Now with this exists a power, which I call a gourd: and with this gourd is a power, which also I call perfect emptiness. This gourd, and perfect emptiness, being one thing, emitted, without emitting it, a fruit, in all respects visible, eatable, and sweet, which fruit their speech calls a Cucumber. But with this fruit is a power of the same tendency with it, which also I call a Pompion. These powers, the gourd, and perfect emptiness, and the cucumber, and the pompion, emitted the rest of the multitude of Valentinus’ delirious pompions.” For if any discourse about universals, may be properly expressed in terms such as those first four, and one may assign the names at one’s own pleasure; what hinders our using these names, being of course much more credible than the former, and in common use, and known by all?

§ 5. And others again of them call the first and aboriginal Ogdoad by these names: first Proarché (or first beginning) then Incomprehensible, and the third Unspeakable, and the fourth Invisible: and that from the First Beginning emanated in the first and fifth place, Beginning; and from the Incomprehensible in the second and sixth place the Inconceivable; and from the Unspeakable in the third and seventh place the Unnameable; and from the Invisible the Unbegotten, the completion of the first Ogdoad. These Powers, they will have it, are before the Deep and Silence, that they may shew themselves more perfect than the perfect, and more knowing than the knowing: to whom one might reasonably exclaim, O rotten melons,¹²²⁵ and drivelling sophists! Since even concerning the Deep himself there are among them many and various opinions, some saying that he is unyoked, neither male nor female, nor in short any thing at all: others again say that he is male and female, ascribing to him the nature of an hermaphrodite. And Silence again others conjoin with him as his consort, to form the first combination.

Chap. XII. § 1. But Ptolemy and his set—he being, as we are told, yet more skilful than their very Teacher—devised and granted to the God who among them is called the Deep, two wives: and these also he called Dispositions, first Thought and then Will: For He first thought of producing (so he speaks); then He willed it. Whereupon, these two dispositions, or rather powers, Thought and Will, being as it were blended with each other, the emanation took place of the Only Begotten and of the Truth, in conjunction: who they say came forth as a sort of types and images of the two dispositions of the Father, the visible of the invisible, of the Will, Mind; of the Thought, Truth: and therefore of the supervening Will the Male is the image, the Female of the unbegotten Thought. The Will then was an actuation¹²³⁶ of the Thought. For although the Thought devised the Emanation, yet it could not alone by itself produce what it devised. But when the power of the Will came on, then it produced what it devised.

§ 2. Do not these men, dearly beloved, seem to thee rather to have had in their minds the Homeric Jupiter, not sleeping for anxiety, but fall of care as to when he shall be able to honour Achilles and to destroy many of the Greeks,—rather than Him Who is God of all? Who as soon as it is conceived, fulfils also that very thing which He hath willed; both thinking that which He wills, and then willing, when it is thought of: being all Thought, all Will, all Mind, all Light, all Eye, all Hearing, all, a Fountain of every good thing.

§ 3. Those¹²⁴¹ however, who are thought to be more prudent than the last, say that the first Ogdoad was not produced by gradual descent, one Æon by another, but that the emanation of the six Æons was brought forth once for all by the Forefather and His Thought; this he affirms, as though himself had assisted at the birth. And he and his party no longer affirm, as the rest do, The Man and The Church to have been born of The Word and The Life, but the Word and the Life of the Man and The Church: but they affirm this in another sense; viz. What the Fore-Father was minded to produce, this was called the Father: but when what he produced was true, this was called the Truth. When therefore He would manifest Himself, this was called Man, and those whom He reckoned on beforehand, when He produced them, this was named The Church. And The Man spake The Word: this is the first-born Son. And upon the Word follows also The Life. And so the first set of eight was completed.

§ 4. And there is much dispute too among them concerning our Saviour. For while some say He was made up of all, for which cause He is also called, they say, Accepted¹²⁵⁷, because all the Pleroma accepted Him: others affirm that He emanated from those ten Æons only, who sprung out of The Word and The Life, and that He is therefore called The Word and The Life, preserving His Progenitors’ names. Others say, He was produced of the twelve Æons, who sprang from The Man and the Church, and therefore that He professes Himself Son of Man, as being a descendant of the Man. While others say that He was framed by Christ and the Holy Ghost, who had been produced for the full confirmation of the Pleroma: and that on this account He is called Christ, preserving the name of His father from whom He emanated. And certain other romancers¹²⁶⁸ (so to call them) of their number, say that the Forefather of all, and First Beginning, and First Inconceivable, is called Man, and that this is the great and hidden Mystery, namely that the Power which is above all kinds, and includes all creatures, is called Man: and that therefore the Saviour calls Himself Son of Man.

Chap. XIII. § 1. ^127mA certain other also there is of their party, boasting to be a corrector of his own Teacher (and his name is Mark), most skilful in magical jugglery: whereby he hath led astray and brought over to himself both many men and not a few women, as though he were most knowing and perfect, and endowed with exceeding power from the regions which are beyond sight and name:—thus being truly in a manner the Forerunner of Antichrist¹²⁸ⁿ. For mingling the toys of Anaxilaus^129o with the wickedness of those who are called Magi, he is supposed thereby to work miracles, among those who have not sense, and have wandered from their right mind.

§ 2. Pretending to offer the Eucharist in cups mingled with wine, and extending the word of invocation to unusual length, he causes them to appear purple and red: that it might seem as though the Grace^130p from those who are over all were distilling its own blood into that cup, by his invocation; whereupon the bystanders most exceedingly desire to taste of that draught, that on them also may drop as the rain the grace proclaimed by this sorcerer. And again delivering to women mixed chalices, he bids them make their own thank-offering, in his presence; after which he himself brings another cup much larger than that which the deceived woman offered, and pours out some from the smaller, viz. from that offered by the woman, adding words to this effect: “The Grace before all, incomprehensible and unspeakable, fill thine inner man, and multiply in thee the knowledge of itself, sowing the grain of mustard seed in the good ground.” Some such words as these he speaks, and drives the unhappy woman to frenzy, and so displays himself as a worker of miracles, the large cup being filled out of the small one, so that some of it even overflows. Certain other things too like these he doth, to the deceiving of many, and drawing them away after him.

§ 3. And it is probable that he has also some Dæmon associate^131q with him, through whom he both seems to prophesy himself, and causes the women to prophesy, as many as he deems worthy partakers of his grace. For he busies himself most about women, those especially who are elegantly clad, and wear purple, and are most wealthy: and often, trying to mislead them, he says to them flatteringly, “I desire to impart to thee of my grace, inasmuch as the Father of all sees continually thine Angel before His face. Now the place of thy Greatness^132r is in us: it is meet for us to become one. Receive first from me and through me the grace. Prepare thyself, as a bride awaiting her spouse, that thou mayest be what I am and I what thou art. Settle in thy bridal chamber the seed of the light. Receive from me the bridegroom, and comprehend him and be comprehended in him. Behold the grace is come down upon thee: open thy mouth and prophesy.” And when the woman answers, I never yet prophesied, and I know not how to prophesy: making certain invocations the second time, to astonish the deceived creature, he saith to her, “Open thy mouth, speak anything whatever, and thou wilt prophesy.” And she blown up and whirled about by his words, her soul all heated with the expectation of her being about to prophesy, her heart palpitating more than it ought, makes bold to utter words of dotage and all that comes uppermost, vainly and rashly, as heated by empty breath, (as he that was better than we are^133s affirmed of such persons, “A daring and shameless thing is a soul heated with empty air”): and from that time forward accounts herself a Prophetess, and thanks Mark, for giving her a portion of his own grace: and endeavours to requite him, not only in giving of her goods (by which means he hath actually amassed a large property), but also in bodily cohabitation, eager in all to be united with him, that with him she may come to perfect unity.

§ 4. And before now some of the more faithful women, having the fear of God, and not led utterly astray, when he sought to beguile them like the rest, bidding them prophesy, have puffed at him, and devoted him by a curse, and so separated themselves from that kind of wild group: being well aware, that prophesying is wrought in men not by Mark the magician, but on whomsoever God from above shall send His grace, these have their Prophecy given of God, and then speak where and when God willeth, and not when Mark directs. For that which directs is greater and more authoritative than that which is directed, the one leading, the other being subject. If then Mark commands, or any other (as these men are wont every where to play with the lot^134t in their suppers, and bid one another prophesy, and utter oracles to themselves according to their own lusts): he who so directs will be greater and more authoritative than the Prophetic Spirit, he being a man: which is impossible. Nay, but such spirits, receiving commands from them, and speaking when they will, are rotten and helpless, and daring and impudent, sent out by Satan to deceive and destroy those, who keep not steadily braced that faith, which they received, by the Church from the beginning.

§ 5. And that love-potions and charms, with a view to insulting their very persons, are employed by this Mark against some of the women, though not perhaps all; themselves in many cases have confessed, on their return to the Church of God; that they were bodily ill-used by him, and that they loved him with a mad fondness. Yea, and a certain Deacon too, from among ours in Asia, having received him into his house, fell into this calamity: his wife, who was beautiful, being corrupted both in mind and body by this sorcerer, and having followed him a long time. Afterwards the brethren having with much toil converted her, she continued her whole life in the rank of a Penitent, mourning and weeping the corruption which had befallen her by the sorcerer.

§ 6. And certain disciples too of his, lurking about in the same ways, have deceived and corrupted silly women not a few, proclaiming themselves perfect; as though none might compare with the greatness of their knowledge, not though you mention Paul or Peter, or any other of the Apostles: but that they knew more than all, and had alone drunk in the greatness of the knowledge of the unspeakable Power, and that they are on high above all power: wherefore also they do all things freely, having no fear in anything: they becoming, because of their Redemption¹³⁵⁹, exempt from the hold and sight of the Judge. And even if he were to lay hold on them, presenting themselves to him with their redemption they would say thus: “O partner of the Throne of God and of the mystical Silence before the world^136u, because of whom the Great Powers continually beholding the face of the Father, having thee for their guide and usher, keep drawing upwards the forms of themselves, which that female of high daring^137x imagined, and for the goodness’ sake of the First Father produced, even us their images, then when she had conception of the beings on high as a dream: behold the Judge is near, and the herald summons me to make my defence. But do thou, as knowing the case of both^138y, present to the Judge the argument for both of us, as being one and the same.” But the Mother, hearing these things, quickly puts on them the helmet of Homer’s Pluto^139z, that they may invisibly avoid the Judge. And immediately drawing them up, she leads them into the bridal-chamber, and assigns them to their respective spouses.

§ 7. Now by such sayings and doings, in our climates too of the country on the Rhone, they have beguiled many women:¹⁴⁰* who having had their conscience seared with a hot iron, do some of them practise Penitence, and that openly; but others, shrinking from this, and quietly in a manner giving up the hope of the life of God for themselves, have revolted, some of them, altogether, while others waver, and it is with them as in the Proverb, they are neither without nor within; this they have for the fruit of the seed of the children of Knowledge.

Chap. XIV. § 1. This Mark then, affirming himself most entirely by himself to have been made the Womb and Receptacle of Colorbasus’ Silence, as being her only-begotten, did somewhat in this way deliver himself of the seed of Decay^141a which was deposited in him: That the Most High Quaternion itself from the unseen and unnamed regions descended to him in a female form (since, says he, the world could not bear the masculine form thereof); and signified what she herself was, and declared to him quite alone the origination of all things, which she never revealed to any either God or Man; thus speaking: “When the Father first had his birthpangs, He who is beyond comprehension and without substance, He who is neither male nor female: when He willed the Unspeakable to become subject to speech, and the Invisible to Form, He opened His mouth, and emitted a word like unto Himself: which Word presenting itself shewed Him what He was, itself being made manifest as the Form of the Invisible. And the enunciation of his name was on this wise: He spake the first word of his name, which was the beginning, and the syllable thereof was of four letters: He knit on to it the second, and this also was of four letters: next in order he spake the third, and this was of ten letters: and he spake also the following one, and this was of twelve letters. The enunciation therefore of the whole name was of thirty letters, and four syllables. And each of the letters has its own writing and its own character and its own sound and forms and images: and there is no one of them which discerns the form of that letter which is above itself. Nay it has no knowledge at all thereof, nor does it all care about¹¹⁴²⁰ the pronunciation, each one of that which comes next to it, but the sound which itself utters, it utters as though it were the whole, and thinks it is naming the entire sum of things: that is, each one of them being a part of the whole, utters its own note as the whole, and they cease not sounding, until with their single articulations they are come to the last line of the last letter.¹⁴³* And then he said the restitution of all things took place, when they all having come down to that one line, shall give forth one and the same utterance: of which utterance he supposed there was an image, when we pronounce the Amen together: while the notes are those who figure the Æon without Substance and Unbegotten, and that these are the forms which the Lord called Angels, which see continually the face of the Father.¹⁴⁴*

§ 2. “Moreover the names of the letters as they are spoken and ordinary, he named Æons, and words, and roots, and seeds, and plenitudes, and fruits. But those which belong to them one by one, and are peculiar to each, he said were included and understood in the name of the Church. Of the letters whereof the last in its last line uttered its own voice: the sound whereof having gone forth, generated letters of its own after the image of those former letters, out of which both the things here, he saith, were put in order, and the things before them generated. The letter itself however, to which the sound belonged, following the sound downwards, was received back by its own syllable upwards (so he speaks) to complete the sum of things: but the sound remained in the parts below, as it were cast out. But the element itself, he says, from which the letter together with its proper sound descended below, has thirty letters: and each one of the thirty letters has in itself other letters, by which the name of the letter is spelt; and these others again are named by other letters, and these others by others; so that the multitude of the letters falls out infinite.

“And you may more clearly understand what is said, thus. The Element Delta has five letters in itself, δ itself, and ε; and λ, and τ, and α: and these letters again are written by other letters, and those others by others. If then the whole substance of the Delta turns out infinite, fresh letters continually generating other fresh ones, and succeeding one another; how much greater than that element, saith he, must the whole sea of letters be! And if that one letter is so immense, consider the depth of the letters of the whole name, of which letters Mark’s friend Silence laid it down that the First Father is made up. Wherefore also the Father, he says, knowing how incomprehensible He is, permitted the Elements, whom he also calls Æons, each one to cry out his own sound, because no one could utter the whole.”

§ 3. And the Quaternion, he said, having explained this to him, added, “Now then I am minded to manifest unto thee the very Truth herself. For I have brought her down from the mansions on high, that thou mayest look on her unclothed, and discern her beauty, yea, and hear her speak, and marvel at her wisdom. Behold then her head above, the Α and Ω; her neck Β and Ψ; her shoulders with her hands, Γ and Χ; her bosom, Δ and Φ; her chest, Ε and Υ; her back Ζ and Τ; her belly Η and Σ; her thighs Θ and Ρ; her knees Ι and Π; her legs Κ and Ο; her ancles Λ and Ξ; her feet Μ and Ν.” This is the body of that truth which our wizard teaches: this is the figure of the alphabetical element, this the form of the letter: and he calls this element, Man: and he says “it is the fountain of all discourse, and the beginning of all sound, and the utterance of all that is unspeakable, and the mouth of that still Silence. And this indeed is her body: but do thou, lifting on high the thought of thy mind, hear from the mouth of Truth the self-producing Word, which also conveys the Father.”

§ 4. Now upon her saying this, “the Truth (he says) looked upon him, and opened her mouth and spake a Word; and the Word became a Name, and it became that Name, which we know and speak, Christ Jesus: which Name as soon as she had pronounced, she became silent. And while Mark was looking for her to say something more, the Quaternion again coming forward saith, Thou didst esteem as contemptible that Word, which thou heardest from the mouth of Truth. It is not that which thou knowest and thinkest, an old name. Nay, thou hast the sound of it only, but knowest not its meaning. For as to JESUS, it is the name of the Sign^145b, being six letters, known by all who are of His calling. But that which exists among the Æons of the Pleroma, having many parts, is of another form, and of a different stamp, known by those of that place who are akin to him; whose magnitudes are with him continually.

§ 5. “These twenty-four letters then which are among you, understand to be emanations bearing the image of the three Powers, which comprehend the whole number of the elements on high. That is, for the nine mute letters, account thou them to belong to the Father and Truth, because of their being dumb, i.e., unspeakable and unutterable. And the eight semi-vowels, as belonging to the Word and the Life, because they are in a kind of mean between the mutes and vowels, and may be regarded as emanating from those above, and having those beneath referred to them. And the vowels, themselves also being seven, belong to the Man and the Church, since voice going forth throngh the Man, gave form to all. For the tone of the voice invested them with form. First the Word and the Life have their eight, then the Man and the Church their seven, then the Father and the Truth their nine. And towards¹⁴⁶¹ that sum which fell short he who was set apart in the Father came down, being sent to the same being, from which he had been separated to amend his deeds, that the united Pleroma having equality, might bear as fruit in all the same power, that which proceeds from all. And thus the sum of the seven received the power of the eight; and the regions become equal in their numbers, being so many Ogdoads: which being three, when added to one another, exhibit the number of twenty-four. The three Elements moreover, which he says are in conjunction with the three powers, which make six, from which have flowed out the twenty-four Elementary Forms, being quadrupled by the ratio of the Unspeakable Quaternion, make the same number with them: which Elements, he saith, belong to Him who cannot be named. And that they are worn as dresses by the three Powers, after the similitude of the Invisible. And that the double letters among us are images of the images of those Elements: and being numbered with the twenty-four elements, virtually make up the number thirty, the number which proportion requires.

§ 6. “Of this discourse, and of this Œconomy, the fruit, he says, appeared in the likeness of an image, He namely, who after six days went with three others into the mountain,¹⁴⁷* and became the sixth in company; He who was overcome, and went down in the space of seven days, being in some signal sense the eighth, and comprehending in himself the whole number of the Elements. That number was manifested, on his coming to Baptism, by the descent of the Dove, which is Ω and Α: for its number is 801^148c. And that on this account Moses said, Man was framed on the sixth day: and that the Œconomy too, that is, the appearance of the last Man for the Regeneration of the first man, took place on the sixth day, which is the preparation:¹⁴⁹* of which Œconomy the beginning and the end was the sixth hour,¹⁵⁰* in which He was nailed to the Cross. Because the Perfect Mind, knowing that the number six had a power of Creation and Regeneration, manifested to the children of light the regeneration which took place by him who shewed himself in a marked way to have relation to that number^151d. Whence also he saith that the double letters have the notable number, [i.e. six^152e]. For the Notable Number joined to the twenty-four letters, makes out the Name of thirty Letters.

§ 7. “And he [i.e. the Only Begotten] used as his attendant the Power of the Seven Letters [i.e. The Truth] (as Mark’s friend Silence affirms) that the fruit of his self-actuated counsel might be manifested. Consider however, saith she, for the present, this notable number, formed upon the other notable one, consider him who was in a manner divided or cut in sunder, and abode without; who by his own power and wisdom, by the emanation from himself, animated this world of the seven powers, after the pattern of the^153f Seven-fold Virtue, and caused it [his emanation] to be the soul of this visible Universe. And while he himself disposes of this work, as made by him of his free will, all the others ministering supply the imagination of their Mother, being imitations of the things inimitable. And the first Heaven utters the sound Α, the next after it Ε, the third Η, the fourth and middle of the seven, its sound is equivalent to Ι; the fifth the Ο, the sixth the Υ, the seventh and fourth from the middle utters loudly the Element Ω; as Mark’s Silence, so full of babbling, but uttering no kind of truth, constantly affirms. And these powers, she saith, all entwined one with another ring out and glorify Him from whom they emanated; and the glory of their peal is conveyed on to the First Father. She says too that the sound of this hymn of glory being borne to Earth, became the moulder and producer of all things that are on the earth.

§ 8. “And her proof she brings from infants newly born; whose soul, as soon as they come out of the womb, cries out in the sound of each of these Elements. As then the seven Powers (so she speaks) glorify the Word, so also the soul in these babes, weeping and wailing about Mark, glorifies him.¹⁵⁴* And that on this account David said, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise: and again, The Heaven of Heavens declare the glory of God.¹⁵⁵* Wherefore also the soul, when it is in labours and distresses, for the straining itself off^156g, utters aloud the Ω for a token of praise: that the soul above recognising its own kindred, may send it an helper.”

§ 9. Concerning the whole Name then, this I mean of thirty letters, and the Deep, whose bulk is made up of the letters thereof, moreover concerning the Body of Truth with its twelve members, each member consisting of two letters, and her word which she solemnly pronounced to him without pronouncing, and concerning the solution of the name which was not spoken, and concerning the soul of the world and of man, how they have their proper Œconomy in a typical way; these are his dotings. But in the next place we will declare how the Quaternion shewed him out of the names the same numerical value: that thou, beloved, as thou hast often requested of us, mayest not be ignorant of any of his statements which have reached us.

Chap. XV. § 1. Thus then doth their Silence, full of all wisdom, declare the generation of the twenty-four elements: “that with onlyness co-exists oneness, whereof are two Emanations, as was said before, the Monad and the Unity: which being added to two, became four: for 2 × 2 = 4. And again, the two and four being put together, exhibited the number of six. And these six being quadrupled, brought forth the twenty-four forms. And that as to the names of the first quaternion, which are most holy, being subjects of thought and incapable of being spoken, they are comprehended by the Son alone: which they are, the Father knoweth. But that these following are venerable ones, and named with faith, in his teaching: Unspeakable and Silence; Father and Truth. And of this quaterníon the whole number is of twenty-four elements. For the name Ἄῤῥητος hath in itself seven letters, and σευγὴ and πατὴρ five, and Ἀλήθεια seven: which being added together, the 2×5 and 2×7, complete the number of twenty-four. And in like manner also the second Quaternion, the Word and the Life, the Man and the Church, exhibit the same number of their Elements. And that the Saviour’s Name which may be spoken, Ἰησοῦς, is of six letters, but His ineffable one of twenty-four letters. Υἱὸς and Χριστὸς^157h [the Son and Christ] is of twelve letters; but that which is unspeakable in Christ, of thirty letters. And therefore He calls Himself Α and Ω, in order to indicate the Dove, this number belonging to that bird.

§ 2. “But Jesus, saith he, hath the following unspeakable generation. From the mother of all, the first Quaternion, the second Quaternion proceeded as a daughter, and it became an Ogdoad, from which proceeded a Decad: thus there came to be a set of eighteen. The Decad therefore combining with the Ogdoad, and making it tenfold, put forth the number of eighty, and having multiplied the eighty again, produced the number of 800. So that the whole number of the letters going on from the Ogdoad to the Decad, is 888, which is JESUS. For the Name JESUS, according to the number in the letters, is 888. Thou hast clearly the supercelestial generation of Jesus also, by their account. And that the Greek Alphabet has accordingly eight units, and eight tens, and eight hundreds, thus exhibiting the calculation of the 888, that is, the Name Jesus, made out of all the numbers: and that He is therefore called Α and Ω, signifying His generation from all. And again thus: The first Quaternion in arithmetical progression being added to itself, the number of ten comes out: for 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10: which is I: and this, they say, is Jesus. But Christ also, they say, being of eight letters, signifies the first Ogdoad, which being conjoined with the ten, brought forth Jesus = 888.

“And he is called too, saith he, the Son Christ, i.e. the number Twelve. For the name Son is of four letters, and Christ of eight: which being added exhibit the sum twelve. Now before the mark of this name, which mark is Jesus, appeared to his sons, men were in much ignorance and error. But He appeared who is the name with six letters, who put on flesh, that He might come to the perception of Man, having in Himself the six and the twenty-four: then knowing Him they ceased from their ignorance, and ascended from death unto life, the name being made their way to the Father of Truth: it having been the will of the Father of all to do away with ignorance and to destroy Death. And the doing away with ignorance was by the better knowledge of Him. And to this end was elected the Man who according to His will was mysteriously provided as an image of the Power on high.

§ 3. “For from the Quaternion proceeded the Æons. And in the Quaternion were the Man and the Church, the Word and the Life. From these then, saith he, certain powers flowing forth, generated the Jesus who appeared on Earth. And the place of the Word was filled by the Angel Gabriel, and of the Life by the Holy Ghost, and of the Man by the Power of the Son: and the place of the Church the Virgin supplied. And thus by his account is produced the Man of the Dispensation by Mary, whom the Father of all selected, after he had passed through the womb, for the perfect knowledge of Himself. And when He had come to the water, there descended upon Him, as a Dove, he that hastened upwards, and fulfilled the number of twelve: and that in him exists the seed of these who are sown with him, and with him descended and arose. But the virtue itself, which descended, he says is the seed of the Father, having in itself both the Father and the Son, and the Power of Silence, made known through these, but without a name, and all the Æons. And this is the Spirit that spake by Jesus, which professed itself to be the Son of Man, and manifested the Father, descending upon Jesus, yet so as to be made one with Him. And he who by this dispensation is our Saviour, while he destroyed death, made known the Father Christ. Jesus then, he said, is a name for the man who comes of the Œconomy, but it was assigned for a resemblance and figure of the Man who was afterwards to come down upon him. And that he by receiving him, had both the Man himself, and the Word himself, and the Father, and the Unspeakable, and the Silence, and the Truth, and Church, and Life.”

§ 4. These things then surely are what no O, nor Alas, nor any tragical exclamation and deploration can reach. For who would not hate the evil contriver and framer of so great falsehoods, seeing, first of all, The Truth made by Mark but an Idol; and that branded with the letters of the Alphabet? Lately, but yesterday and the day before, as they say, compared with that which was from the beginning, do the Greeks own that they received from Cadmus first sixteen, then afterwards in process of time themselves discovered at one time the aspirates, at another the double letters. Last of all Palamedes they say added to these the long vowels. Was there then no truth, before the Greeks had these? For her body according to thee, Mark, was later than Cadmus and those before him, and later than those who added the other letters; yea, later than thyself; for thou alone didst bring down as an idol that which thou denominatest Truth.

§ 5. But who will endure thy Silence, babbling such things? her who names the Unnamed, and explains the Unspeakable, and declares Him who cannot be traced, and saith that He opened His mouth, whom thou affirmest to be without body or form: and that He produced a word, as it might be any one of the animals made up of parts: and that His Word being like Him who produced it, and having been made the Form of the Invisible One, is of thirty Letters, and four Syllables. Wherefore the Father of all, by thy account, according to his resemblance to the Word, will consist of thirty letters and four syllables. Or again who will bear with thee, shutting up the Word of God, the Creator, Artificer and Maker of all things in figures and numbers, now thirty, now twenty-four, now six only; and mincing Him small into four syllables and thirty letters: and reducing the Lord of all, the Establisher of the Heavens, to the number of 888, as though He were framed like the Alphabet: subdividing the the Father Who comprehends all and is Himself incomprehensible, into sets of four, and eight, and ten, and twelve respectively, and by such multiplications expressing the Father’s being, unspeakable and inconceivable as thou sayest it is. And Whom thou termest incorporeal and without substance, His being and substance thou framest out of many letters, generated one set from another: thyself turning out a false Dædalus, and a bad artificer of the Most High Virtue: dividing moreover that which thou sayest is indivisible into mute and vowel and semivowel sounds, falsely assigning that which is mute in them to the Father of all and to His Mind, thou hast cast all who believe in thee into the highest blasphemy and greatest impiety.

§ 6. Wherefore also justly and suitably to this boldness of thine did the divine Ancient and herald of the truth exclaim against thee in verse, thus saying:

Thou idol-framer, Mark, and portent-gazer

Skill’d in the astrologer’s and wizard’s art

Strengthening thereby the words of thy false lore,

Dazzling with signs whome’er thou lead’st astray,

Strange handywork of God-defying power,

Such to perform thy father Satan still

Affords thee might, by an angelic Power

Azazel:—thee, by the destroyer mark’d

Chosen forerunner of the impious craft.

Thus far that Elder, beloved of God. But we will endeavour in few words to go through the rest of their mysterious system, far as it reaches; and to bring into the light what has been long hidden: for so will all be able easily to refute it.

Chap. XVI. § 1. The birth then of their Æons, and the wandering and discovery of the sheep, are united, and a mystical exposition endeavoured to be put on them, by those who reduce all things to numbers, stating that all sums are made up of the Monad and Duad: and, by numbering from the Monad unto four, so they generate the Decad: for 1 + 2 + 3 + 4, bring forth the number of the ten Æons. And again the Duad proceeding from itself unto the number of the Mark [6] as 2 + 4 + 6, exhibits the sum of twelve. And again if we number in like manner from the Duad to ten, it comes out 30¹⁵⁸ⁱ, wherein are 8 and 10 and 12. The number of twelve then, because of its containing the Mark as an accompaniment to it, on account of the mark they term the Passion^159k: and therefore that the defect took place in the twelfth number, when the sheep which bounded away was lost: the falling away, as they say, having taken place from the number twelve. And in like manner they conjecture that from the sum of twelve one power revolted and perished: and that this is the woman who lost her piece of silver,¹⁶⁰* and lighted a candle and found it. Thus then the numbers remaining, in the parable of the Drachma nine, in that of the sheep eleven, conjoining with one another, produce the number ninety-nine, since 9 × 11 = 99. Wherefore also the word Amen, they say, hath this number^161l.

§ 2. Neither will I grudge relating to thee another explanation of theirs, to give thee in all ways a notion of the fruit to be had from them. As thus: the letter η (i.e. including the mark [ϛʹ]) they say is the Ogdoad, lying in the eighth place from the first. Then again without the mark [ϛʹ] calculating the number of the letters themselves, and adding them on as far as the η, they make out thirty. For one beginning at α and ending at η, will find by the number of the letters (subtracting however the mark ϛʹ and adding on continually the increment of the letters) = the number thirty. For as far as ε^162m it makes up fifteen, then the number seven added to these completes twenty-two: η = 8 adjoining itself produces in full his most marvellous thirty. And hence they demonstrate the Ogdoad to be the mother of the thirty Æons. Since then the number thirty is combined of thirty Powers, itself being taken three times, produces ninety: for 3 × 30 = 90. And this triad again multiplied by itself produces nine: and thus the Ogdoad in their account was mother of the number ninety-nine. And because the twelfth Æon fell away and left the eleven on high, the form of the letters, they say, is framed corresponding to the fashion of their argument (for λ is set eleventh of the letters, which is the number of thirty): and is set for an image of the Œconomy on high: Since beginning from α, and omitting ϛʹ, the numerical value of the said letters as far as λ being summed up, by the gradual increase of the letters, makes with λ the number ninety-nine¹⁶³ⁿ. And that λ being the eleventh in order, came down to seek one like itself, to fill up the number of twelve, and finding it was satisfied:—that this is evident from the very form of the letter. For that Λ having as it were come to seek its own likeness, and having found it, and caught it, supplied the place of the twelfth, the letter M being made up of two Λ’s. Wherefore also they by their knowledge escape from the place of the ninety-nine, i.e., deficiency, which answers to the left hand^164o: and follow after the one, which being added to the ninety-nine, transfers them to the right hand.

§ 3. I know well indeed that thou, beloved, going over all this, wilt greatly ridicule this madness of theirs, so wise in its own conceit. But worthy of bewailing are they, who in so cold and forced a way expose to scorn so high worship, and the greatness of that Power Which is truly unspeakable, and such vast Œconomies of God, by their Alpha and Beta, and certain numbers. And as many as withdraw from the Church, and have faith in these old wives’ fables, verily they are self-condemned.¹⁶⁵* Whom Paul commands us after a first and second admonition to reject. But John, the Disciple of the Lord, hath enhanced their condemnation, not willing that so much as “Hail” should be said by us to them.¹⁶⁶* For he, saith he, that biddeth them Hail, is partaker of their evil deeds.¹⁶⁷* And with reason: for there is no Peace, saith the Lord, to the impious^168p. And impious above all impiety are these, who affirm the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the Only Almighty God, above Whom is no other God, to have been produced from a Defect, and that the produce of another Defect^169q: so that by their account He is an Emanation from a third Defect. A notion which we ought altogether to exorcise and anathematize, and to escape from them as we may, to some great distance: and the more obstinate they are, and the more they delight in their inventions, so much the more ought we to know that they are actuated by their own ogdoad of evil spirits. As those who are seized with brain fever, the more they laugh and appear strong, and do all as healthful persons and some things even beyond what sound health could do, so much the worse are they: in like manner these too, the more they seem to have exceeding high thoughts, and unnerve themselves, straining their bow too vehemently, so much the less are they in their sober senses.¹⁷⁰* For the unclean spirit of ignorance having gone out, afterwards upon finding them at leisure¹⁷¹² not for God but for worldly disputations, hath taken to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and puffed up their mind,¹⁷²* as though they could understand the things which are higher than God, and thus making each one apt to be entirely cast out, hath packed up in them the whole ogdoad of the folly of wicked spirits.

Chap. XVII. § 1. I have a mind also to explain to thee, how they affirm the creation itself to have been wrought by the Demiurge, after the image of the things invisible, through the agency of his Mother, as though himself knew it not. First they say that the four elements, fire, water, earth, air, were produced as an image of the first quaternion on high: and that their operations being counted with them, I mean hot and cold, dry and moist, form an exact image of the Ogdoad. Next they enumerate ten Powers, as follows: first seven circular bodies which they also call Heavens, then the Circle which includes them, which moreover they name the eighth Heaven; and besides these the Sun and the Moon. These, being ten in number, they say are images of the invisible Decad, which proceeded from the Word and the Life. And that the Dodecad is signified by the Circle called the Zodiac: the twelve signs most evidently shadowing out the Dodecad, the daughter of the Man and the Church. And Saturn, they say, being fastened in a contrary direction to the motion of the Universe (which is most rapid) gravitating towards the very bottom, and counter-balancing the swiftness of the others by his own slowness, so as to accomplish in thirty years his circuit from sign to sign:—they say he is the image of Order, who compasses about their mother with the thirty names^173r. And that the Moon again, taking thirty days to perform the circuit of her proper heaven, by those days figures out the number of the thirty Æons. And that the Sun too, revolving in twelve months, and so completing his circular restitution of things, doth by his twelve months declare the Dodecad. And that the days, having their measure of twelve hours, are a type of that Twelve which is not apparent. Yea, and the hour also they observe, being the twelfth part of the day, to be furnished with thirty parts, for the image’ sake of the Thirty. And that the Circumference of the Zodiac itself is of 360 parts, each sign having thirty parts. And thus by the circle also the image of the connexion of the twelve with the thirty, they say, is preserved. And again remarking that the earth is divided into twelve climates, they are confident that it too, receiving in each climate a virtue perpendicularly from the Heavens, and bearing children such as correspond to the power which sends down that influence, is a very clear type of the Twelve and the offspring thereof.

§ 2. They add moreover, that the Demiurge, desiring to imitate the infinity, eternity, freedom from space and time, of the Supernal Ogdoad, and not being able to express its perseverance and eternity, because he is himself the fruit of a Defect, distributed its Eternity into times and seasons and numbers of many years, thinking by the number of his times to imitate the infinitude thereof. And hence, they say, the truth having escaped him, falsehood followed after: and therefore that his work will admit of dissolution, when the times are fullfilled.

Chap. XVIII. § 1. Of the Creation, then, they so speak; and daily each one of them generates something new, as he is able. For none is perfect, unless he have borne fruit of some great fictions among them. Next I must state what passages out of the Prophetic writings they distort, and subjoin the refutation thereof. Thus, Moses, say they, beginning his treatise of the Creation, presently at the outset points out the Mother of all,¹⁷⁴* saying, In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. By naming therefore these four, God, and the Beginning, Heaven, and Earth, he draws, as they say, the form of their Quaternion. And that to signify the invisible and occult nature of it he says,¹⁷⁵* But the earth was invisible and unformed. And the second Quaternion, the progeny of the first, they will have him to have thus expressed, by mentioning the deep and darkness, in them also water, and the Spirit borne upon the water. After which he, meaning the the Decad,¹⁷⁶* speaks, they say, of Light, and Day, and Night, and the Firmament, and Evening,¹⁷⁷* and what is called Morning,¹⁷⁸* and dry land and sea, moreover also the Herb and in the tenth place the Wood:¹⁷⁹* thus by the ten names signifying the ten Æons. And in like manner the virtue of the Twelve they say is imaged out in his writings: in his mention of the sun and moon and of the stars, and times and years, of whales and fishes and creeping things, of birds and quadrupeds and wild beasts, and after all these the twelfth which is Man. Thus, say they, the Thirty are expressed by the Spirit through Moses. Yea further, that the Man who was moulded after the image of the higher Virtue, hath in him the virtue derived from that one Fountain: and that it is situated in the region of the brain, out of which flow four virtues, after the image of the supreme quaternion called, the first Sight, the next Hearing, the third Smell, and the fourth Taste. And the Ogdoad they say is indicated by the Man as follows; by his having two organs of hearing and as many of sight, moreover two of smelling, and a double taste, of the bitter and sweet. And the whole man they teach hath in the following manner the whole image of the thirty.¹⁸⁰* First in his hands by his fingers he bears the ten, then in his whole body divided into twelve members, the twelve:¹⁸¹* now they divide it as the body of Truth is divided among them, concerning which we have before spoken. And as to the Ogdoad, unspeakable and invisible as it is, they say it is understood to be hidden in the bowels.

§ 2. And the Sun again, the great light, they say was made on the fourth day because of the number of the four.¹⁸²* And of the Tabernacle framed by Moses,¹⁸³* the courts being made of fine linen and blue and purple and scarlet, exhibited in their account the same image. And the Priest’s long robe, adorned with four rows of precious stones,¹⁸⁴* they define to mean the Tetrad. And whatever such things are found in the Scriptures capable of being brought to the number four, they say were made such because of the Quaternion. And that the Ogdoad again is thus indicated: In the eighth day they say Man was formed, for sometimes they say he had his beginning on the sixth and sometimes on the eighth (except they will tell us that the earthly Man was formed on the sixth day, and the carnal on the eighth, for they make a distinction of these two): and some say that there was a difference between the man made after the image and likeness of God, both male and female (who is also the spiritual man), and him who was formed out of the Earth.

§ 3. And the dispensation too of the Ark in the Deluge, wherein eight men were saved,¹⁸⁵* they say most evidently indicates the saving Ogdoad;¹⁸⁶* and the same also David signifies, being eighth in birth among his brethren. Yea, and Circumcision too,¹⁸⁷* taking place on the eighth day, points out the circumcising of the Ogdoad on high. And in a word, whatsoever things are found in the Scriptures reducible to the number eight, they say, fulfil the mystery of the Ogdoad.¹⁸⁸* Also that the Decad is meant by the ten nations which God promised to give Abraham for a possession: and the Œconomy too about Sarah,¹⁸⁹* how after ten years she gives him her own handmaid Hagar, to raise himself up children by her, they say declares the same. The Servant again of Abraham sent after Rebecca,¹⁹⁰* and his gift to her at the well of bracelets with ten pieces of gold,¹⁹¹* and her brethren detaining her ten days;¹⁹²* moreover also Jeroboam who takes the ten tribal sceptres, and the ten curtains of the Tabernacle,¹⁹³* and the pillars of ten cubits,¹⁹⁴* and the ten sons of Jacob, sent first to Egypt to buy corn,¹⁹⁵* and the ten Apostles to whom the Lord manifests Himself after His resurrection,¹⁹⁶* Thomas not being present;—were types according to them of the Invisible Ten.

§ 4. But as to the number twelve, in which they say the mysterious Passion of Defect took place, from which Passion they will have all things visible to have been framed: they say it occurs everywhere in a marked and evident manner: as the twelve sons of Jacob, of whom are the twelve tribes;¹⁹⁷³ and the oracle of embroidered work having twelve stones,¹⁹⁸* and the twelve bells,¹⁹⁹* and the twelve stones placed by Moses under the mountain:²⁰⁰* and in like manner too those placed by Joshua in the river, and others on the opposite side,²⁰¹* and those who bear the Ark of the Covenant,²⁰²* and those set by Elias in the whole burnt-offering of the bullock; and the number too of the Apostles: and all things in short, as many as keep the number twelve, they say denote their Dodecad. But the uniting of all these²⁰³⁴ which is named the Thirty, they eagerly and disputatiously exhibit by the Ark under Noe,²⁰⁴* thirty cubits high; and by Samuel causing Saul to sit down first among the thirty guests;²⁰⁵* and by David, when for thirty days he was hidden in the field;²⁰⁶* and by those who went with him into the cave;²⁰⁷* and by the length of the holy tabernacle having been thirty cubits;²⁰⁸* and by whatsoever other things they find equal in number to these.

Chap. XIX. § 1. I have thought it right to add to these such points as they try to make out by selection from the Scriptures concerning their First Father, who was unknown to all before the coming of Christ: whereby they would exhibit our Lord as proclaiming another Father, besides the Maker of the Universe; whom, as we have said before, they in their impiety affirm to be the offspring of Defect. Thus, the Prophet Isaiah having said,²⁰⁹* But Israel hath not known Me, and My people hath not understood Me, they distort as though he had spoken of the ignorance of the Invisible Deep. And that which is said by Hosea,²¹⁰* There is no truth in them, nor knowledge of God, they are positive, tends the same way. And, There is none that understandeth, nor searcheth out God:²¹¹* they are all gone aside, they have together become useless, they refer to the ignorance of the Deep. The saying moreover of Moses,²¹²* None shall see God, and live, has reference, they argue, to Him.

§ 2. For as to the Creator, they falsely say that He was seen by the Prophets; but the saying, None shall see God, and live, they will have to be spoken of that Greatness which is invisible and unknown to all. Now that the invisible Father and Maker of all is He of Whom it is said, None shall see God, is manifest to us all: but that it is not spoken of The Deep whom they wrongly imagine, but of the Creator, and that He is Himself the Invisible God, shall be shewn in the course of our argument. And Daniel too, they say, signifies this same, when he asks the Angel the solutions of the Parables, as though not knowing them. Yea, that the Angel also, hiding from him the great Mystery of the Deep, said unto him, “Haste away, Daniel:²¹³* for these words are shut up, until the understanding understand, and the white are whitened.” And they flatter themselves that they are the white, and the truly intelligent.

Chap. XX. § 1. And besides all this, they privily bring in an unspeakable multitude of apocryphal and spurious scriptures, which themselves have devised to astound the foolish, and those who know not the writings of the truth. And they add to this the following forgery also: that the Lord being a child, and learning letters, and His master having bidden Him, as the custom is, say Alpha, He said Alpha. And again the Teacher having bidden Him say Beta, the Lord answered, Tell thou Me first what is Alpha, and then I will tell thee what is Beta. And this they relate, as though He only knew that unknown thing which He made manifest under the Type of Alpha.

§ 2. And some also of the things set down in the Gospel they adapt to this stamp: as His answer to His mother at the age of twelve years:²¹⁴* Wist ye not that I must be about the things that are My Father’s? And, say they, they knew not that He was telling them of the Father. And that He therefore sent out His disciples to the twelve tribes, proclaiming to them the unknown God. And that to him that called Him Good Master, He confessed that God who is truly good, saying, Why callest thou Me good?²¹⁵* one is good,²¹⁶* My Father in the Heavens: and by Heavens, here, the Æons they say are meant. And whereas He made no answer to those who said to Him, By what power doest Thou this?²¹⁷* but they were confounded by His counter-question, they declare that by His not speaking He shewed the ineffable nature of the Father. Yea and His saying “I have often desired to hear one of these words, and had none to tell Me,” they say is an indication, by the word one, of Him Who is truly one God, Whom they had not known. Moreover in His weeping over Jerusalem when He drew near it, and saying,²¹⁸* Hadst thou known, even thou, to-day, the things which belong to thy peace, but they are hidden from thee: by the word Hidden, they say, He set forth the hidden Nature of the Deep. And again that in saying, Come unto Me,²¹⁹* all that labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you; and learn of Me; He proclaimed the Father of the Truth. For what they knew not, saith He, that He promised to teach them.

§ 3. But for the highest demonstration, and keystone (so to call it) of their argument, they produce these words:²²⁰* I will thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes. Yea, Father, for it seemed good in Thy sight. All things were delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Father but the Son; nor the Son, but the Father, and to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him. In these they say He hath expressly made declaration, as though before His coming no one had ever known the Father of Truth whom they have devised for themselves. And they want to make it out as though the Creator and Maker had always been known by all: and that our Lord said this about the Father, who is unknown to all, whom they declare.

Chap. XXI. § 1. As to their tradition about the Redemption, it proves to be invisible and incomprehensible, being as it is a mother of those things which cannot be holden nor seen. And therefore being unstable, it cannot be set forth simply, nor in one manner of speech: because they deliver it as they will, each one of them. For according to the number of initiators into this way of thinking, so many are the Redemptions. Now that this kind is forged by Satan to the denying of Baptism, our new Birth unto God, and to the rejection of the whole Faith, we will declare in the course of our refutation of them, in the proper place.

§ 2. However, their statement is, that it is requisite for those who have won the perfect knowledge, i.e., for their being regenerated into the power which is above all: it being else impossible to enter within the Pleroma: since it is this which brings them quite into the Deep. For the Baptism of the visible Jesus they hold to relate to the forgiveness of sins, but the Redemption of the Christ who came down therein, to perfection; the one natural, the other spiritual. And that Baptism was proclaimed by John unto Repentance, but Redemption brought hither by Jesus unto Perfection.²²¹* And that of this He saith, I have also another Baptism to be baptized with, and I am greatly urged on to the same. Yea also to the sons of Zebedee, when their mother was asking for them to sit on the right hand and on the left with Him, in His Kingdom, they say that of this additional Redemption the Lord said,²²²* Can ye be baptized with the Baptism which I am about to be baptized with? And Paul they say hath in terms indicated, and that often, the Redemption in Christ Jesus: and that this is the same which is variously and discordantly delivered by them.

§ 3. For some of them frame a bridal chamber, and solemnize an initiation, with certain invocations upon those who are being perfected, and they say that what they do is a spiritual marriage, after the similitude of the marriages on high. Others bring them to water, and baptizing say over them, Into the Name of the unknown Father of all, into Truth the Mother of all, into him that descended upon Jesus, for uniting, and redemption, and communion of their virtues. While others utter certain Hebrew names, the more to astound the initiated, thus: Basema, &c. Of which the interpretation is like this: “That which is above all power of the Father I invoke, which is named Light, and a good Spirit and Life: for thou hast reigned in the body.” And others again rehearse the form of Redemption thus: “The name which is hidden from all Godhead, and Dominion, and Truth, which Jesus of Nazareth put on in the lives of the light of Christ, of Christ who lives by the Holy Spirit, unto Angelical Redemption.” The name of Restitution: “Messiah Uphareg &c:” and of these the interpretation runs thus: “I divide not the Spirit, the heart, and the supercelestial Power, the merciful one. May I profit by Thy Name, O Saviour of Truth!” And while the initiators themselves rehearse these forms, the initiated answers, “I have been confirmed, and ransomed, and ransom my own soul from this world, and from all things that are of it, in the name of IAO, who purchased his own soul unto redemption, in Christ the Living.” Then those who are present subjoin, “Peace to all, upon whom this Name resteth.” Then they besmear the initiated with the juice of balsam. For this ointment they say is the type of the fragrance that is above all.

§ 4. But some of them say that bringing to the water is superfluous, but mix oil and water together, and with invocations like what we have said cast it on the head of the initiated. And this they will have to be redemption. And they too anoint him with balsam. Others again rejecting all these affirm, that the mystery of the unspeakable and invisible Power must not be wrought by visible and corruptible creatures, nor that of the things inconceivable and incorporeal and remote from sense, by sensible and bodily things. But that it is perfect Redemption, simply to know well the unspeakable Greatness. For that defect and passion having been caused by ignorance, the whole that is framed out of this ignorance is done away by knowledge. And that so knowledge is the redemption of the inner man. And that it is neither bodily, for the body is corruptible; nor animal, for the animal soul too comes of defect, and is moreover a kind of dwelling-house of the spirit: the Redemption therefore must needs also be spiritual. For that by knowledge the inner or spiritual man is redeemed, and that they are content with the right knowledge of all things; and that this is real Redemption.

§ 5. There are others, who redeem their dead, and such as are arrived at the very point of departure, pouring on their heads oil and water, or the aforesaid ointment with water, and the aforesaid invocations, that they may escape the hold and sight of the Principalities and Powers, and that their inner man may ascend up above the invisible things; as though their body were left among the creatures of the world, and their soul cast out to the Demiurge. And they bid them coming to the Powers, after their death, to speak thus: “I, the son of the Father, of the pre-existent Father, and such a son as to be in the Pre-existent:—I am come to see all things, both alien, and mine own: yet not simply alien, but belonging to Achamoth who is female, and made all things for herself. And I deduce my birth from the Pre-existent one, and I go again to mine own, from whence I came.” And by these words they say he avoids and escapes the Powers. And that he comes also to the Demiurge’s People and says, “I am a precious vessel, more than the female who made you. If your Mother knows not her own root, yet I know myself, and I know whence I am, and I call upon the incorruptible wisdom which is in the Father, and is the mother of your mother who hath no father, nor yet any consort. But a Hermaphrodite, made of a female, created you, ignorant even of her own mother, and thinking herself to be alone: but I invoke her mother.” And they say that the people of the Demiurge, hearing this, are greatly disturbed, and find fault with their own origin, and the race of their mother: while themselves go to their own place, casting away their chains, i.e., their animal soul. Now concerning their redemption these are the things which have reached us. But whereas they differ from each other both in doctrine and in the mode of teaching, and those who are more recently accounted among them, affect daily to find something new, and to bear fruit such as no one ever thought of; it is hard to write out all their opinions.

Chap. XXII. § 1. But we holding the rule of Faith, i.e., that there is one God Almighty, Who created all things by His Word, and adapted them, and made all out of not being to be (as the Scripture saith,²²³* For by the Word of the Lord the Heavens were established, and all the power of them by the breath of His mouth:²²⁴* and again, All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made): yea, not one of all was excepted, but the Father made all by Him, whether visible or invisible, sensible or intelligible, temporal with a view to some œconomy, or everlasting and eternal: not by Angels, nor by any Virtues severed from His own Mind^225s—for the God of all hath need of nothing:—but both by His Word and His Spirit making and ordering and guiding and giving being to all: He who made the world (for in truth the world consists of all these); He who moulded man, He the God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, above Whom is no other God, nor Beginning, nor Virtue, nor Fulness; He, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we shall shew:—This rule, I say, we holding, very diverse and many as their sayings are, easily convict them of having erred from the Truth. For almost all existing heresies affirm indeed that there is one God, but by a wrong opinion alter Him, becoming unthankful to their Maker, even as the Gentiles by Idolatry. And the work of God they despise, contradicting their own salvation, themselves proving against themselves most bitter accusers, and false witnesses. Who shall indeed rise again in the flesh, though against their will, to acknowledge the power of Him Who raiseth them from the dead: but with the just they will not be numbered, because of their unbelief.

§ 2. The exposure then and refutation of all the Heretics being so various and manifold, and we intending to speak against them all according to each one’s distinguishing mark; we have thought it necessary first to state the fountain and root of them, that knowing this most sublime Deep of theirs, thou mayest understand the tree, from which such fruits have flowed.

Chap. XXIII. § 1. For Simon the Samaritan, that sorcerer, of whom Luke the disciple and attendant of the Apostles saith, Now a certain man named Simon,²²⁶* who before was in the city, practising art magic, and seducing the people of the Samaritans, saying that He Himself was some great one:—unto whom they all gave heed, from the least unto the greatest, saying, This is the Power of God, which is called great. And they were looking upon him, because that for a long time he had bewitched them with his sorceries:—This Simon, I say, who pretended faith, thinking that by magic, and not by the power of God, the very Apostles wrought cures, and filled with the Holy Ghost by imposition of hands those who believed God by Him Who was preached by them as Christ Jesus:—suspecting this also to be done by some greater reach of magical knowledge, and offering money to the Apostles, that he also might receive this power, of giving the Holy Spirit to whomsoever he will:—Simon, I say, was told by Peter,²²⁷* Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God is purchased by money: thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right before God.²²⁸* For I see that thou art in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. And upon his failing still more to believe in God, in his greediness he even pressed on to contend with the Apostles, that he too might appear glorious, and as having a yet deeper insight into all witchcraft. And so he brought many men to be astonished at him; living as he did under Claudius Cæsar, by whom also he is said to have been honoured with a statue for his magical skill. He then by many was glorified as God, and taught that it was he and no other, who appeared among the Jews as the Son, but in Samaria descended as the Father, and among the other nations used to come as the Holy Ghost. And that he is himself the most high Power, i.e., the Father who is over all; and permits himself to be called whatever men call him.

§ 2. But Simon the Samaritan, from whom all heresies had their being, hath this kind of matter to make up his sect. One Helena, whom he had himself purchased, of Tyre a city of Phœnicia, a common woman, he took about with him, saying that she was the first conception of his mind, the mother of all, by whom at first he conceived in his mind the creation of the Angels and Archangels. For that she being an Understanding leaping forth^229t from him, knowing her father’s will, goes down to the lower parts, and produces Angels and Powers, by whom also he said this world was made. But after she had produced them, she was kept in bondage by them through envy, they not liking to be thought the progeny of any other. For that he was himself entirely unknown to them, but that his Understanding was kept in hold by those who were Powers sent out from her, and Angels: and that she endured all insult from them, to prevent her hastening on high again to her father, even to her being shut up in a human body, and age after age transmigrating as it were from vessel to vessel into other bodies of women. And that she was also in that Helen, for whom the war of Troy was waged; wherefore also Stesichorus, defaming her in his verses, was deprived of sight: then afterwards on his repenting, and writing those Recantations (as they are called) in which he sang her praises, he regained his sight. Moreover, that she passing from one body to another, and continually suffering insult thereby, at last became even a harlot in a brothel: and that she is meant by the lost sheep.

§ 3. Wherefore that he too came, to take her first to himself, and deliver her from her chains, and then give salvation to men by the knowledge of himself. That is, the Angels governing the world badly, because each of them desired the chief place, that he came to reform things, and descended, being transfigured, and likened to the Virtues, and Powers, and Angels; so as to appear a man among men, though he were not a man: and that he was thought to have suffered in Judea though he did not suffer. But the Prophets he says were inspired with their prophecies by the Angels who made the world. Wherefore they were no longer to be cared for by those who had their hope in him and in his Helen. And that they as free persons, should do as they please, for that men are saved by^230u his grace, and not by good works. For that good works are not so naturally, but accidentally, as fixed by those Angels who created the world, by commandments of that sort bringing men into slavery. Wherefore he promised both release to the world, and deliverance to those who are his, from the empire of those who made the world.

§ 4. Accordingly the mystic Priests of these men, while living licentiously, perform works of magic, according to the power of each of them. They use exorcisms and incantations. Philtres too and alluring charms, and those who are called familiars and spirits of dreams, and all other curious arts, are diligently made use of among them. They have also an image of Simon made in the figure of Jupiter, and of Helena in that of Minerva; and adore them. They have also the name Simonians so called from Simon the leader of their most impious theory,²³¹* from whom their science falsely so called had its beginnings: as one may learn from their own statements.

§ 5. This man’s successor was Menander, a Samaritan by birth: who also himself came to perfection in magic. He affirms that the first Virtue is unknown to all, but that he is the person sent from the unseen regions as a Saviour, to save men. But that the world was made by Angels: whom he too, as Simon, states to be sent out from The Understanding. Moreover that by the magic which he taught he gives knowledge for the overcoming the very Angels who made the world. For that his disciples receive resurrection by the baptism which is in him, and can no more die, but continue undecaying and immortal.

Chap. XXIV. § 1. Of these Saturninus, who was of Antioch by Daphne, and Basilides, having opportunities, set forth different systems of teaching: the one in Syria, the other in Alexandria. Saturninus for his part, like Menander, proclaimed one Father unknown to all, who made Angels, Archangels, Virtues, Powers. And that the world was made by certain Angels, seven in number: and all things therein. And that man was the work of Angels, a bright image from the highest Power appearing from above which they being unable to retain, because it presently hastened back upwards, they exhorted each other (so he affirms) saying, Let us make man in an image and likeness. Who being made, and the frame not admitting of an erect posture, because of the weakness of the Angels, but creeping rather as a vile worm, the Virtue from above pitying it, he says, as made in its own likeness, sent forth a spark of life, which set the man upright, and knit his joints, and caused him to live. This spark then of life, he says, hastens back after death to those of the same kind with it: and the other materials of those frames are dissolved.

§ 2. But the Saviour he declared to be unborn and incorporeal, and without figure, and that in appearance only He was seen as man. And the God of the Jews he said was one of the Angels. And that because all the Princes wished to do away with His Father, Christ came to destroy the God of the Jews, and to save them that believe in Him: and these are they who have a spark of His life. For he first said that two sorts of men were framed by the Angels, one bad and the other good. And because the Demons aid the worst sort, that the Saviour came to do away with evil men and demons, and to save the good. But to marry and to procreate children, they say is of Satan. And many of those who are of him abstain also from animals, by that sort of pretended continence seducing many. And that of the Prophecies some were uttered by those Angels who made the world, and some by Satan: whom also he declares to be an Angel opposed to the makers of the world, and especially to the God of the Jews.

§ 3. But Basilides, that he may seem to have invented somewhat higher and more like the truth, draws out to a very great length the tenor of his doctrine, declaring that Mind first is born of the unborn Father, that from it again Reason is born, then from Reason Prudence, and from Prudence Wisdom and Power, and from Wisdom and Power the Virtues and Princes and Angels, those whom they call “the first;” and that by them the first Heaven was made. That afterwards, by derivation from these, others also were made, and that they made another Heaven like the former; and that in like manner others, being made by derivation from these, Antitypes of those which are above them, formed out another, a third Heaven: and a fourth of those coming downward from the third and so on by the same rule were made, as they say, one Prince and Angel after another, and 365 Heavens. And that this is why the year has so many days, according to the number of the Heavens.

§ 4. And that those Angels by whom subsists the later Heaven, which we also behold, ordered all things which are in the world, and divided among them the earth and those nations which are upon it. And that their chief is He who is accounted to be the God of the Jews. And because He wanted to subjugate the other nations to His own people, i.e., the Jews, therefore (they say) all the other Princes stood and acted against Him. And this is why the other nations started aside from His nation. But that the unborn and unnamed Father, seeing their destruction, sent His first-born, Mind (and this is He who is called Christ) to free such as believe Him from the power of those who framed the world. Yea, and that He appeared to the nations of them as a man on earth, and wrought mighty works. Accordingly, that He did not indeed suffer, but that one Simon a Cyrenian, being compelled bare His Cross for Him;²³²* and that while he was crucified in error and ignorance, his form being changed by Him, that men should suppose him to be Jesus, Jesus Himself took the form of Simon, and stood and derided them. For being an incorporeal Power, and the Mind of the unborn Father, His form was changed according to His own will: and so (they say) He ascended to Him that sent Him, mocking them, since He could not be held, and was invisible to all. And that such as know this are accordingly delivered from the Princes who made the world. And that we ought not to confess Him that was crucified, but him that came in man’s form and was thought to be crucified, and was called Jesus, and sent by the Father, that by this arrangement he might do away with the works of the makers of the world. If any man therefore, saith he, confess the Crucified, that man is yet a slave, and under the power of those who made our bodies; while he who denies Him is free from them, and knows the ordinance of the unborn Father.

§ 5. Further, that Salvation is of the Soul only, for the body is by nature corruptible. And that the very Prophecies too were from the Princes who made the world, and the Law especially from their Prince, Who brought the people out of the Land of Egypt. That he despises also things offered to idols, and accounts them nothing, but uses them without any scruple; and accounts also the practice of all other deeds, and of all sorts of lust, a thing indifferent. Moreover, these also make use of magic, and images, and incantations and invocations, and all other kinds of curious art. Devising moreover certain names as it were of Angels, they declare some to be in the first Heaven, others in the second: and next they endeavour to lay down both the names and the principles and the Angels and the Virtues of the 365 pretended Heavens. As also … that the Name, in which, as they say, the Saviour ascended and descended, is Caulacau^233x.

§ 6. And so he that has learned all this, and come to know all the Angels, and the origins of them, he they say becomes invisible and incomprehensible to all the Angels and Powers, as Caulacau was. And that as the Son is unknown to all, so also they must not be known to any one: but while themselves know all, and pass through all, they are in their own person beyond all men’s sight and knowledge. For their word is, Do thou know all men, but thee let no man know. Wherefore also they who are such are ready for denial: nay rather it is impossible that they should suffer for the Name’s sake, being just what all are. For, say they, many cannot know these things, but one of a thousand, and two of ten thousand. And they say they are no longer Jews, but not yet Christians: and that is wrong to utter their mysteries at all, but that one should keep them hidden in silence.

§ 7. But the local positions of the three-hundred and sixty-five Heavens they distribute as the Mathematicians do. For they have taken their theorems, and transferred them to their own sort of learning. And their head (they say) is Abraxas, therefore he hath in himself the three-hundred and sixty-five numbers.

Chap. XXV. § 1. But Carpocrates and his set say that the world and the things that are in it were made by Angels far inferior to the Unoriginate Father. And that Jesus was born of Joseph, and being like other men, differed from the rest in this, that His soul being strong and pure, remembered what it had seen in that circuit of the Unoriginate God, whereof it partook: and that virtue was for this sent Him, that He might escape from the Makers of the world, and haying passed through all, and being in all delivered, might ascend unto Him: and those in like mannner, which embrace the like objects to Him. And the soul of Jesus, they say, brought up in familiarity with the Jews, despised them, and thereby obtained Powers, by means whereof He made void the penal sufferings which were among men.

§ 2. That the soul accordingly, which like that of Jesus is able to despise the rulers and makers of the world, receives also virtues like Him to work the like result. Wherefore also they are lifted up so high, as to affirm, some of them, that they are like Jesus; others, that in some respect they are even stronger than He, being more excellent than His disciples, for example than Peter and Paul and the other Apostles, who are in nothing inferior to Jesus. For that their souls coming down from the same orbit, and therefore equally despising the Makers of the World, were counted worthy of the same excellency, and depart again to the same place. But should any one despise things here more than He did, such an one, they say, may be better than He.

§ 3. Yea, and these also work magic arts and incantations, love-charms also, and alluring spells, and familiar spirits, and prompters of dreams, and other mischiefs, saying that they have now power to rule over the Princes and makers of this world; and not them only, but all the things also, which are done therein. And they are themselves emissaries of Satan, as the Gentiles, to detract from the Divine Name of the Church; that in one way and another men hearing their proceedings, and thinking us to be all such, may turn away their ears from the preaching of the Truth: or again seeing what they do, may speak evil of us all, although we communicate in nothing with them, neither in doctrine, nor in manners, nor in daily conversation. But [they maintain] a luxurious life, and an impious opinion, and to veil their flagitiousness abuse the Name:²³⁴* whose judgment is just, receiving from God the due reward of their deeds.

§ 4. And into so great madness do they rush unbridled, that all things, whatsoever are irreligious and impious, they say they have in their power, and practise. For by nothing but human opinion, they say, are any matters good and bad. And that in fact, men’s souls in the course of their transmigration into bodies must exist in every sort of life and of act: except one by way of anticipation in some one visit do all things once over: and along with the rest, such things as it is shocking for us not only to say and hear, but even for the thought to enter our mind, or to believe that any such thing is thought of in the states of our time. And so, by what their writings say, their souls obtaining all sorts of experience of life, when they go forth may have nothing still wanting to work in: lest haply, because somewhat is still wanting to their liberty, they be forced again to enter into some body. To this purpose, they say, Jesus uttered this Parable;²³⁵* When thou art in the way with thine adversary, give diligence to be delivered from him; lest at any time he deliver thee to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and he cast thee into prison. Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt not depart thence, until thou pay the last farthing. And the Adversary they say is one of the Angels which are in the world, whom they call the Devil: saying that he was made for this purpose, that he might lead those souls which have perished, from the world unto the Prince (who they say is the first of the Makers of the World); and that he again delivers such souls to an Angel who ministers unto him, to be inclosed in other bodies: for the body, they say, is a prison. And His expression, Thou shalt not come out thence, until thou pay the last farthing, they interpret as though one could not get out of the power of those Angels who made the world. Thus a continual change of bodies is going on^236y, until one have been absolutely in every work which is done in the world. And when he shall have failed in none, then his freed soul is uplifted to that God, Who is above the Angels, makers of the world. Yea, and that so all souls are saved, whether in a single visit here they voluntarily mingle themselves with all sorts of doings, or whether it be by way of transmigration from one body to another, or infusion, that in each several way of life they fulfil and pay their debts, and are so delivered, not having to act any more in the body.

§ 5. Now whether or no they practise among themselves such things as are godless, and lawless, and irreligious, I cannot make up my mind^237z; but so it is written down in their books, and this exposition themselves give, saying that Jesus spake in mystery apart to His Disciples and Apostles, and bade them deliver these things to the worthy and obedient: for that we are saved by faith and love, but other things, being indifferent, are according to the opinion of men reckoned here evil and there good, nothing being evil by nature.

§ 6. And some of them use a mark, searing their disciples with a hot iron upon the lower part of the lobe of the right ear. Whereby also Marcellina, who came to Rome under Anicetus, being of this sect, misled^238a many. Moreover, they call themselves Gnostics, and have images, some painted, and some formed of other materials, saying that it is the figure of Christ made by Pilate, at the time when Jesus was with men. And these they crown and exhibit, with the images of the Philosophers of the world, I mean with the likeness of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle and thë rest: and other respect towards them they practise, as the Gentiles do.

Chap. XXVI. § 1. And a certain Cerinthus too in Asia taught that the world was not made by the First God, but by a certain power far separated and distant from the Royalty which is above all, and which knows not the God who is over all. And he added that Jesus was not born of a virgin (for that seemed to him impossible), but was the son of Joseph and Mary, like all other men, and had more power than men in justice, prudence and wisdom. And that after his Baptism there descended on him from that Royalty which is above all, Christ in the figure of a Dove, and that he then declared the unknown Father, and did mighty works, but that in the end Christ again soared back from Jesus, and that Jesus suffered and rose again, but Christ remained impassible, as being spiritual.

§ 2. But those who are called Ebionites agree indeed that the world was made by God, but in the opinions which relate to the Lord they do not hold with Cerinthus and Carpocrates. But the only Gospel they use is that according to Matthew; and they reject the Apostle Paul, calling him an Apostate from the Law. And the prophetic writings they try to explain with peculiar accuracy: and they are circumcised, and persevere in the customs which belong to the Law, and in a Jewish mode of life: even to the worshipping of Jerusalem, as though it were the House of God.

§ 3. But the Nicolaitans have for their Master Nicolaus, one of the seven who were first ordained to the Diaconate by the Apostles: and they live as though things were indifferent. However the Apocalypse of John declares most fully what they are, teaching as they do that it is indifferent whether or no one commit adultery and eat idol sacrifices. Wherefore concerning them too the Word said,²³⁹* But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

Chap. XXVII. § 1. One Cerdon too, taking his beginning from Simon and his set, sojourned in Rome under Hyginus, who occupied the ninth place in the Episcopal succession from the Apostles, and taught that the God proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one being revealed, the other unknown: the one again being Just, the other Good.

§ 2. And Marcion of Pontus came in his place, and extended his school, shamelessly blaspheming Him Who is declared God by the Law and the Prophets: affirming Him to be an evil-doer, and fond of wars, and inconstant also in His judgment, and contrary to Himself: and as for Jesus, that He came from that Father who is above the God who made the world, into Judæa in the time of Pontius Pilate the Governor, who was Tiberius Cæsar’s Procurator, and was manifest in human form to the inhabitants of Judæa, to do away the Prophets and the Law and all the works of that God who made the world, whom he also calls Ruler of world²⁴⁰⁵. And moreover, mutilating the Gospel according to St. Luke, and taking away all that is written of our Lord’s Birth, and much also from the doctrine of our Lord’s discourses, wherein it is most plainly written how our Lord confessed the Maker of this world to be His Father: he persuaded his disciples that he was himself more trustworthy than the Apostles who delivered the Gospel: while he was putting into their hands not the Gospel but a small portion of it. And in like wise the Epistles of the Apostle Paul too were mutilated by him, by taking out whatever is plainly spoken by the Apostle of the God Who made the world, how that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and whatsoever out of the prophetic writings the Apostle hath quoted in his teaching, as predictive of the coming of the Lord.

§ 3. And salvation he says will be of our souls only, those souls which have learned his doctrine; but the body, because forsooth it is taken from the earth, cannot possibly partake of salvation. And over and above his blasphemy against God, he added this also, truly taking to him the mouth of the Devil, and saying every thing contrary to the truth: That Cain, and the like of him, and the Sodomites, and Egyptians, and the like of them, and in a word all the nations which had walked in a medley of all kinds of mischief, were saved by the Lord, upon His going down into Hell, and their running to meet Him; and that He received them into His Kingdom; while Abel and Enoch and Noe and the other righteous men, and those who belonged to the Patriarch Abraham, with all the Prophets, and such as pleased God, did not partake of salvation: so the serpent which was in Marcion proclaimed. For, saith he, because they knew that their God was always tempting them, they suspected Him of tempting them then, and accordingly did not hasten to Jesus, nor believe His preaching: and therefore, he said, their souls remained in Hell.

§ 4. But him indeed,—because he alone dared openly both to mutilate the Scriptures, and to revile God more shamelessly than all others,—we will refute in a separate place, convicting him out of his own writings: and by those discourses of our Lord and the Apostle, which are retained by him, we will by God’s help effect his overthrow. But we were obliged to mention him now, that thou mightest know of all who in any way adulterate the truth, and damage the preaching of the Church, how that they are disciples and successors of Simon the sorcerer of Samaria. Although in order to seduce others they profess not their master’s name, yet they teach his opinion. Holding forth the Name of Christ Jesus as an allurement, while in various ways they bring in Simon’s impiety, they destroy many, by the good Name foully corrupting their views, and by the sweetness and glory of that Name holding out to them the bitter and malignant venom of the Serpent, the beginner of apostasy.

Chap. XXVIII. § 1. Now from these who have been mentioned many offshoots of many heresies have in course of time arisen; because many of them, yea all, desire to be teachers; and set themselves to withdraw from the sect in which they were, and to teach in a new way, forming one doctrine out of one opinion, and another out of another; still proclaiming themselves the inventors of whatever notion they have put together. To give an example: from Saturninus and Marcion those who are called The Continent preached abstinence from marriage, setting at nought God’s original formation, and tacitly blaming Him Who made male and female for the generation of men. And they brought in abstinence from the things which are called among them animate, behaving themselves unthankfully to God Who made all. And they deny the salvation of the first Man. And this has even now been invented among them, one Tatian having in the first instance brought in that blasphemy: who having been a hearer of Justin, as long as he was with him uttered nothing of the kind, but after his martyrdom falling away from the Church, elated and puffed up with the conceit of being a teacher, did as one excelling all others establish for himself a school with a peculiar stamp: like Valentinus’ people, making out a mythology of certain invisible Æons; like Marcion and Saturninus, denouncing marriage, as corruption and fornication; but his denial of Adam’s salvation he invented of himself.

§ 2. But others again, taking their hint from Basilides and Carpocrates, have brought in indiscriminate concubinage, and polygamy, and carelessness about eating things offered to idols; saying that God doth not greatly regard these things. To be short, there is no counting the number of those who in one way and another have fallen away from the truth.

Chap. XXIX. § 1. And besides these, from among those whom we have before mentioned as followers of Simon, a multitude of Gnostics hath arisen, and they have shewn themselves like mushrooms from the ground: whose opinions, the chief among them, we proceed to state. Some of them suppose a certain Æon, undecaying, with a virgin Spirit, whom they name Barbelo. And they say that he hath a^241b certain Father who may not be named; and that He was fain to manifest Himself to the said Barbelo. And that Thought came forth and stood before Him, and asked Foreknowledge. And Foreknowledge also having come forth, again upon their petition came forth Incorruption; then afterwards Life Eternal: in all whom Barbelo rejoicing, and growing^242c in greatness and delighted with her conception^243d produced besides it a Light like unto it. Her they affirm to be the beginning of enlightening and of production to all things. And that the Father seeing this Light, anointed it with His mercy to make it perfect. And this, they say, is Christ: who again requests, as they say, that Mind may be given to help Him; and there came forth Mind. And after these the Father sends forth the Word. And conjunctions are to be made of Thought and the Word, and of Incorruption and Christ; and immortal Life too is conjoined unto Will, and Mind unto Foreknowledge. And these were magnifying the Great Light, and Barbelo.

§ 2. Then afterwards, of Mind and the Word they say was sent forth the Self-Begotten, to represent the Great Light; and that he was highly honoured, and all things made subject unto him. And that Truth was sent out with him, and that there is a conjugation of the Self-Begotten and of Truth. And from the Light which is Christ, and Incorruption, four luminaries were sent forth to wait upon the Self-Begotten: and that from Will, again, and Life Everlasting four such processes took place, to minister under the four Luminaries: the fruit of which they name, Grace, Free-will, Understanding, Prudence. And that Grace for its part was conjoined with the great and first Luminary; and this they will have to be the Saviour, and call him Harmogenes; but Free-will with the second, whom also they name Raguel: and Understanding with the third Luminary, whom they name David; and Prudence with the fourth which they name Eleleth.

§ 3. All things then being thus established, in addition to these the Self-Begotten produces a Perfect and True Man, whom they also call Adamant, because he is neither overcome himself, nor those from whom he was: who is also removed, with the First Light, from Harmogenes. And that with Man was produced from the Self-Begotten Perfect Knowledge, and was joined to him (whence also he acknowledged Him That is above all): that unconquered might also was given him of the Virginal Spirit: and that all these refresh themselves with hymning the great Æon. And hence they say was manifested the Mother, the Father, the Son: and that from Man and Knowledge was born the Tree, which itself also they call Knowledge.

§ 4. Afterwards from the first Angel, who stands by the Only Begotten, was produced, they say, the Holy Spirit: whom they call also wisdom, and Prunicos. He then seeing all besides having some partnership, but himself without partner, sought one to whom he might be united; and finding none, persisted, and spread himself out, and looked out towards the lower regions, thinking there to find a consort: and not finding any, sprang out, annoyed also, because it had made an effort without the Father’s good-will. Then afterwards, led by simplicity and affection, it produced a work in which was ignorance and boldness. And this work they say was the First Beginner, the framer of this Creation: and they relate that he took from his mother great power, and departed from her into the lower parts, and made the firmament of Heaven, wherein also they say he dwells. And being Ignorance, he made the Powers which are under him, and the Angels, and firmaments, and all earthly things. Then they say that he being conjoined with Self-will, produced Vice, Jealousy, and Envy, and Fury, and Concupiscence. And these being born, the Mother Wisdom fled away in sadness, and retired into the higher places, and becomes to those who number it from below a Cycle of Eight. She therefore departing, that he thought himself alone, and said accordingly, I am a Jealous God, and there is none beside Me. And they indeed utter such lies.

Chap. XXX. § 1. But others again utter prodigious things, that there is a kind of first Light in the Power of the Deep, blessed, and incorruptible, and without limit: and that this is the Father of all, and is called the First Man. And his thought coming forth they call the Son of him who sends it forth: and say that this is the Son of Man, the Second Man. And that beneath these is the Holy Spirit; and under the Superior Spirit are the separated elements, water, darkness, the Abyss, Chaos; over which they say the Spirit is borne, calling It the First woman. Afterwards they say the First Man with his Son rejoicing in the beauty of the Spirit, i.e., the woman, and enlightening it, he produced therefrom Light Incorruptible, a third male Being, whom they call Christ, the Son of the first and second man, and of the Holy Spirit, the first woman.

§ 2. But in this union of the father and son with the woman whom also they call the mother of all living, she not being able to bear nor to comprehend the greatness of the lights, was overfull and boiled over, they say, towards the left side: and so their only Son Christ indeed, as being on the right hand, and capable of elevation to the higher places, was straightway caught up with his mother to the incorruptible Æon. And that this moreover is the true and holy Church, viz., the summoning which took place, and meeting, and uniting of the father of all the first man, and the son the second man, and Christ their son and the aforesaid woman.

§ 3. But that the virtue which overflowed from the woman, imbued as it were with light, fell downwards from its authors, having moreover by its own will the light which imbued it: which also they denominate The Left and Prunicos, and Wisdom, and both male and female. And coming down just as it was upon the waters, they being immoveable, it moved them also, dealing wantonly even unto the lowest depths; and took a body from them. For that to the light imbuing it all things flowed together, and cleaved to it, and hemmed it in: if it had not had this, it would perhaps have been all swallowed up and drowned by the Matter. She thus being bound down by a material body, and depressed greatly, repented after a while, and endeavoured to escape the waters, and ascend to her mother; but could not because of the weight of the surrounding body. And being in great distress, she devised to hide the light which was from above, fearing lest it also should be damaged by the inferior Elements, as she herself was. And having received power, from the imbuing of light which was with her, she leaped upward, and was lifted on high: and being on high spread out, and drew as a curtain, and framed this heaven which is seen, out of her body: and abode under the heaven which she made, yet having the outline of the body which was made in the waters. Having acquired a longing for the higher light, and won power throughout, she laid aside her body, they say, and was delivered from it. And this body which they say she put off, was named woman from that other woman.

§ 4. Her son too they say had for his part a sort of panting after incorruption left in him by his mother, whereby he works, and having become mighty, he also produced, as they say, a son out of the waters without a mother: for they allow not that he knew his mother. And that his son, in imitation of his father, produced another son. This third also generated a fourth, and the fourth also himself generated a son; of the fifth a sixth son they say was generated, and of the sixth a seventh. Thus with them too the Hebdomad was complete, the Mother having the eighth place: and as in birth, so also in worth and power they are said to precede each other.

§ 5. Names too they have assigned to their lie, as follows: that he who comes first from the Mother is called Ialdabaoth, and the next to him, Iao, and the next, the great Sabaoth; the fourth Adoneus, and the fifth Eloeus, and the sixth Horeus, and the seventh and last of all Astapheus. And these, whether Heavens, or Excellencies, or Virtues, or Angels, or Creators, they add, sit in order in Heaven, according to their birth, unseen, and govern things in heaven and in earth: the first of them, Ialdabaoth, despising his mother, in that he formed sons and grandsons without leave from any one: moreover also Angels and Archangels and Virtues and Powers and Dominations. Which being done, his sons, they say, turned to quarrel and contend with him for the chief place; upon which Ialdabaoth in grief and despondency looked upon the dregs of matter lying beneath, and fixed his desire thereon: whence they say a son was born (which was Mind itself twisted into the form of a serpent): and afterwards spirit, and the soul, and all worldly things: whence were generated all oblivion, and wickedness, and jealousy, and envy, and death. And this serpentlike and crooked Mind they say did yet more overthrow their father by his crooked ways, being with their Father in Heaven and in Paradise.

§ 6. Whereupon Ialdabaoth, exulting, boasted of all that he had under him, and said, I am Father and God and none is above me. But his mother hearing cried against him, “Lie not, Ialdabaoth; for there is above thee the father of all the first man, and Man the Son of Man.” And all being troubled at the new voice, and unimaginable name, and inquiring whence the cry came, Ialdabaoth, they say, said, Come let us make man after our image. And the six virtues hearing this, their mother giving them the idea of man, that by him she might clear them quite of him who was their ruling Power, met and formed a man of immense breadth and length; and when he did but creep on the ground, they brought him to their father, Wisdom also bringing this to pass, that she might empty him also of the light wherewith he was imbued, that he might not, having Power, be able to lift up himself against those who are on high. And he, breathing into man the breath of life, was they say unawares emptied of his Power; and that man thenceforth had Mind and Conception (and these, they say, are the things which are saved); and presently he gives thanks to the First Man, deserting his makers.

§ 7. And that Ialdabaoth in envy wanted to invent a way of spoiling the man by means of a woman: and that out of his own Conception he brought a woman, whom that Prunicos receiving invisibly despoiled of all virtue. And that the rest coming and admiring her beauty, called her Eve, and desiring her, had sons by her, who also they say are Angels. And their mother compounded a plan by a serpent to seduce Eve and Adam to transgress the command of Ialdabaoth. And Eve as being told this by the Son of God easily believed it, and persuaded Adam to eat of the tree, of which God had said he should not eat. And they say that they eating knew the virtue which is above all, and departed from those who had made them. And that Prunicos seeing that they are overcome even by their own work, uttered great joy, and again cried out, that whereas the Father was incorruptible, this one did of old lie in calling himself the Father, and that there being of old a man and the first woman, she too sinned in adultery.

§ 8. And that Ialdabaoth because of the obliviousness which surrounded him, not even regarding all this, cast Adam and Eve out of Paradise, because they had transgressed his command. For that he wanted children to be born to him of Eve, and obtained it not, because his mother in all things opposed him: secretly even exhausting Adam and Eve of the Light wherewith they were imbued, so that the Spirit which came from the highest quarter might not share in any curse or reproach. They moreover, being thus emptied of the divine substance, were cursed by him, and cast down from heaven into this world, as these teach. Yea, and the serpent too, working against the Father, was cast down by him into a lower world: but that bringing into his own power the Angels which are here, he too begat six sons, himself being the seventh, in imitation of the Hebdomad which is about the Father. And these they say are seven worldly dæmons, always opposing and thwarting the race of man, because on their account their father was cast down

§ 9. And that Adam and Eve had, at first, light and transparent bodies, and in a manner spiritual, as also they were formed; but that coming hither they degenerated into somewhat darker and grosser and more sluggish; yea, and that their soul was relaxed and languid, as having from its Maker an inspiration merely of this world: until Prunicos pitying them, restored the sweet odour of the Light which imbued them, whereby they came to recollect themselves, and knew themselves to be naked, and what was the matter of their body: and knew that they carry death about with them: and they were patient, knowing that their body is put on them for a time: and that they found also food, wisdom shewing them the way, and being satisfied had knowledge of each other, and begat Cain: whom the outcast serpent with his sons straightway took hold of, and subverted, and filled earthly things with oblivion, plunging them in folly and boldness: so that he by killing even his brother Abel, first exhibited jealousy and death. After whom by the providence of Prunicos they say Seth was begotten: after him Norea; of whom they say sprang the remaining multitude of men, which was also plunged by that inferior set of Seven into all kind of wickedness, and apostasy from the Superior holy seven, and into idolatry, and all other kinds of despight: the Mother always invisibly opposing them, and preserving what was her own, viz., the imbuing light. And the holy seven they will have to be the seven stars which men call Planets; and the outcast serpent they say has two names, Michael and Samael.

§ 10. And that Ialdabaoth being angry with men for not worshipping him and honouring him as Father and God, brought the deluge on them to destroy them all at once. But Wisdom here too resisting him, Noe and his family were saved in the ark, through that imbuing light which they had from her, by which the world was replenished with men: of whom the said Ialdabaoth selected one Abraham, and made a covenant with him, if his seed would persevere in his service, to give him the inheritance of the earth. Afterwards by Moses he brought them out of Egypt, i.e., Abraham’s progeny, and gave them a law, and made them Jews; from among whom the seven Days [or Lights] (whom also they call the holy week) chose out, even each one of them, his own herald to glorify him, and to declare him as God: that the rest also hearing their praises might themselves serve those who were declared gods by the Prophets.

§ 11. And the Prophets they thus distribute: to the said Ialdabaoth Moses belonged, and Jesus the son of Nave, and Amos, and Abacuc: to the next, Iao, Samuel and Nathan, and Jonah and Micha: and to the next, Sabaoth, Elias and Joel and Zacharia: and to the next, Adoneus, Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Daniel: and to the next Eloeus, Tobias and Haggai; and to the next, Horeus, Micha and Nahum; and to the next, Astaphæus, Esdras and Zephaniah. Of these then every one is glorifying his own father and God. And that wisdom too herself spake much by them of the first man and of the incorruptible Æon, and of that Christ which is on high, forewarning and reminding men of the incorruptible Light, and of the first man, and of the descent of Christ: whereupon those Princes being alarmed, and wondering at the new things which were declared by the Prophets, Prunicos brought it about by means of Ialdabaoth, who knew not what he was doing, that two productions of men took place, the one of the barren Elizabeth, the other of the Virgin Mary.

§ 12. And because the said Wisdom had no rest, neither in heaven nor in earth, in her grief she called her mother to her aid. And her Mother, the First woman, had compassion on the penitence of her daughter, and requested of the first man that Christ should be sent for a help to her: who accordingly was sent out and descended to his own sister, and to the imbuing Light. And that the Wisdom which is below knowing that her brother is coming down, both announced his coming by John, and prepared the baptism of repentance, and provided Jesus beforehand: that Christ descending might find a clean vessel, and that by her son Ialdabaoth she might be declared as a woman to Christ. And that he descended through the seven heavens, likening himself to their sons; and gradually drained them of their Power. For to him they say flowed together all the imbuing Light: and that Christ coming down into this world, clothed first his sister Wisdom, and both rejoiced, consoled by one another: and this they define to be the meaning of the Bridegroom and Bride. And that Jesus as being born of a Virgin by the working of God, was wiser, and purer, and more righteous than all men: that Christ conjoined with Wisdom descended, and so was made Jesus Christ.

§ 13. Many therefore of His disciples, they say, knew not of Christ’s descending on him; but that when Christ descended on Jesus, then he began to do mighty works, and to heal, and to proclaim the unknown Father, and to profess himself openly the son of the first man. Whereupon the Princes being angry, and the Father of Jesus, took measures to slay him: and at the very point of his being brought before them, Christ himself, with Wisdom, they say, departed to the incorruptible Æon, but Jesus was crucified: that Christ however did not forget his own, but sent from above a certain Power into him, which raised him up in the body; which body even they call animal and spiritual: for that he left worldly things behind in the world. And the disciples seeing that he had risen again, knew him not: nay, nor that Jesus himself, on whose account he rose from the dead. And they say there was this very great error among His disciples, that they thought he had risen in His earthly Body,²⁴⁴* not knowing that flesh and blood layeth not hold of the Kingdom of God.

§ 14. And they would fain prove the descent and ascension of Christ by this, that neither before His Baptism nor after His Resurrection from the dead do the Disciples say that Jesus did any great work, not knowing that Jesus was united to Christ, and the incorruptible Æon to that which was part of the Seven, and the earthly and animal body. And that he delayed after His Resurrection eighteen months, and when the spiritual faculty came down upon him he learnt that which is revealed, and that a few of His disciples, whom He knew to be capable of so great mysteries, were taught these things by Him; and so He was received into Heaven; Christ sitting at the right hand of his father Ialdabaoth, in order that he may receive to Himself the souls of those who have known them, after their putting off their worldly flesh, enriching himself, his father not knowing, nay not even seeing him: so that in such measure as Jesus enriches himself with holy souls, in the same his father is made a loser and degraded, his power being drawn away from him by those souls. For that now he will no longer have holy souls, to send back again into the low world, but only those which are of his subtance, that is, of his breathing into men. And that the consummation will be when the whole of the spirit of light with which things are imbued is gathered in and caught away into the Incorruptible Æon.

§ 15. Such are the opinions which they maintain: from which, as from the Lernæan Hydra, a many headed wild beast has been generated out of the School of Valentinus. For some say that Wisdom herself was made a serpent; and was therefore contrary to the maker of Adam, and introduced knowledge among men; and that therefore the serpent is called wiser than all. As also because of the arrangement of our entrails, through which food is introduced; they having that kind of figure to indicate a hidden substance in us, apt to produce the form of a serpent.

Chap. XXXI. § 1. And others again say that Cain is from that higher princely nature; and Esau, and Core, and the Sodomites, and all such they own for kinsmen: and therefore they being warred against by the Creator, none of them, they say, is ill received. For whatsoever in them was her own, and of her, Wisdom kept snatching away to herself. And these things they say were accurately known to Judas the traitor, and that he alone above all the rest being aware of the truth, accomplished the mystery of betrayal: and by him they say that all things both earthly and heavenly are dissolved. And they allege a forgery to this effect, calling it Judas’ Gospel.

§ 2. Once also I collected passages from their writings, in which they exhort men to dissolve the works of the womb (now The womb is one of their Names for the Maker of Heaven and Earth): for that they are no otherwise saved than by passing through all deeds;²⁴⁵* as Carpocrates too said. And that in every sin and base work an Angel is present; and that he who does it ventures on such daring and brings in his uncleanness (which thing is an ingredient in such doings) in the name of an Angel, and says, “O thou Angel, I make use of thy work: O thou Power,” (naming it) “I fulfil thine operation.” And that this is perfect knowledge, to pass without fear into such doings, as it is impious even to name.

§ 3. From such their mothers and fathers and ancestors, it was needful evidently to refute those who belong to Valentinus, according to the shewing of their opinions and maxims themselves; and to bring forward their doctrines, if haply any of them doing penance^246e and turning to the one only Creator and God, Maker of the Universe, may be saved: and that other persons may not go on to be drawn away by their evil enticement, as resembling the truth, imagining that they are to know from them some greater and higher mystery; but learning of us for good what they teach for evil, may laugh at their doctrine, and pity their persons, who while yet in these most wretched and ever changing fables have acquired so great haughtiness, as to think themselves better than all others on account of such knowledge, or rather ignorance. However, this is their delight, or rather it is the victory over them, simply to make known their opinions.

§ 4. We therefore have endeavoured to bring before men the whole dainty frame of this ill assorted cub of a fox^247f, and through thee to make it known. For not many words will now be requisite to overturn their doctrine, made known to all. As when some wild beast is hidden in a wood, and thence makes assaults, and lays many waste; he who separates off the wood, and lays it bare, and hath brought the beast itself into sight, is not used to take any more pains for capturing it, now that men perceive that such an one is the beast in question: for of themselves they may see and avoid its assaults, and aim darts on every side, and wound and kill that wasteful monster: So we too, now that we have brought their secrets into the light, and the mysteries which they keep silent among themselves, shall not need many words to overthrow their doctrine. For thou art able and all that are with thee, to try your strength against the things which have been now set forth, and to overthrow their wicked and uncouth doctrines, and to prove the statements which belong to the Truth.

Such then being the case; as I have promised, we will subjoin that which will subvert them, according to our ability, speaking against them all, in the next book. For our statement runs to a great length, as thou seest. And we will also furnish resources for overthrowing them, meeting all their opinions in the same order in which we have stated them; that we may not only discover the wild beast, but wound him also on every side.

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