Book II

preface

§ 1. As to the first Book which precedes this,²⁴⁸* detecting the knowledge falsely so called; we have therein proved to thee, dearly beloved, concerning the imposture of the Valentinians, that it hath been devised by them in manifold and contradictory ways. We have also set forth the opinions of such as were before them, pointing out how they differ from one another, and much sooner from Truth itself. And the opinion too of Mark the sorcerer, he being one of them, with his deeds, we have set forth very diligently: and whatsoever things they select from the Scriptures and try to accommodate to their own device, we have carefully set down; and the way how by numbers and by the twenty-four letters of the Alphabet, they are busy and bold to maintain their Truth, we have particularly gone through. And their statement that the creature is made after the image of their invisible Pleroma, and all their opinions and doctrines concerning the Artificer of it, we have reported: and have declared the doctrine of their progenitor, Simon the Samaritan Sorcerer, and of all those who came after him. We have stated also the number of those who are of him, being Gnostics; and their differences, and doctrines, and successions we have noted, and the heresies founded by them, we have expounded them all. And we have shewn that they all, taking their beginnings from Simon, have brought into this life impious and irreligious tenets; and their way of Redemption we have declared, and how they initiate such as are made perfect, and their modes of address, and their mysteries. And that there is one only God, the Creator, and that He is not the offspring of Defect, and that neither above Him nor after Him is any thing.

§ 2. But in this Book we will establish what our own case requires,²⁴⁹* and what the time permits: and we will overthrow the whole of their Rule by its principal heads: and accordingly, this our work being a detection and subversion of their view, we have given that title to the writing which contains it. For the various sorts of hidden communion they speak of must be done away by exposing and overturning those which they affirm openly: and The Deep of whom they talk must submit to have it proved that he neither was at any time, nor is now.

Chap. I. § 1. It is well then to begin from the first and chiefest head, from God the Artificer and Maker of Heaven and earth,²⁵⁰* and of all things that are therein; Whom they blaspheming call the offspring of Defect and to shew that neither above Him nor after Him is any thing: and that not moved by any, but of His own mind He freely made all things, He being the only God and the only Lord and the only Creator and the only Father, and alone upholding all things, and Himself giving to all things their existence.

§ 2. For how shall there possibly be above Him any other Fulness, or Beginning, or Power, or any other God:²⁵¹* since God, the Fulness of all these things, must contain them all in infinite space, and Himself be contained by none? But if there is any thing without Him, then He is not the Fulness of all, nor doth He contain all. For there will be wanting to the Fulness, i.e., to Him Who is God over all, so much as they say is without Him. But that which is deficient, and is parted off from something, is not the Fulness of all things. Yea, and He will have a limit, and a middle and an end, with respect to those who are without Him. Now if He have an end towards the parts below, He will have also a beginning towards the parts above. And in like manner on the other sides too this must of absolute necessity befal Him, and He must be comprehended, and limited and inclosed by those who are without. For that which is His limit downwards necessarily must in every way circumscribe and surround Him Who is limited thereby. Yea, by their account, the Father of all (whom forsooth they call also the First of Beings and of Principles), with the Fulness they talk of, and Marcion’s “good God,” will have a position in something, and will be inclosed, and surrounded externally by some other principle; which must needs be greater than it, since that which contains is greater than the thing contained. Now that which is greater is also more stable, and more truly the Lord; and that which is greater, and more stable, and more truly the Lord, that same must be God.

§ 3. For, there being according to them some other thing too, which indeed they say is without the “Fulness,” and into which they think some higher Power, wandering, descended; it follows of course either that the said external Being comprehends, and the “Fulness” is comprehended;—(otherwise it will not be without the “Fulness” [or Pleroma]; for if there be aught without the Pleroma, the Pleroma will be within that same thing which they say is without it, and will be comprehended by that which is without: now with the Pleroma we are to understand the original God also:)—or again these two, i.e., the Pleroma, and that which is without it, must be indefinitely distant and parted off from one another. But if they affirm this latter, there will be some third thing, which parts off at that indefinite distance the Pleroma from that which is without it; and this third must circumscribe and contain both, and it will be greater both than the Pleroma and than that which is without it, as containing both in its own bosom: and the argument about the spaces contained and containing will go on to infinity. For if this third is to have its beginning upwards and its end downwards, it is absolutely necessary that it be limited also on its sides, both beginning and leaving off in some other things: and those again and others which are above or below, will have their beginnings in some other things: and so on to infinity: So that their device can never stay itself upon One God, but as a result of seeking more than is, must fall into that which is not, and depart from the true God.

§ 4. And all this suits equally well for a reply to Marcion’s sect also.²⁵²* For his two Gods also will be comprehended and circumscribed by an indefinite interval, separating them one from another: And in this way we must needs imagine in every direction many Gods parted by an indefinite interval, having as towards each other both beginnings and terminations; and by the argument by which they try to shew that there is some Pleroma or God above the Framer of Heaven and Earth, by use of that same argument one may make out, that above the Pleroma there is another Pleroma, and above that again another, and above the Deep another Ocean of Godhead, and that the same exist on the several sides of them in like manner: and so their view will lose itself in infinity, i.e., they will be forced continually to be imagining other Pleromata and other Deeps, and nowhere at any time to stay themselves, ever seeking fresh ones besides those which have been mentioned. And it will be uncertain, whether these parts, whereabouts we are, are below, or whether the same be the higher regions, the parts which they call Above, whether they be above or below: so will there be nothing stationary nor fixed to limit our conception, but it will be forced to go forth among immense worlds and indefinite Gods.

§ 5. Moreover, such being the case, each God will be content with his own,²⁵³* and will not be busy about what is another’s: else will he be unjust, and greedy, and ceasing to be that which God is. And each several creation will glorify its own framer, and will be contented with him, and will know no other: else being most justly accounted rebellious by all, it will incur most merited punishment. For there must needs either be One Who comprehends all, and Who in His own dominions made each one of the things which are made, according to His own will: or again many and indefinite Makers and Gods, having on every side both beginning and ending with respect to one another: so shall we be compelled to allow that all the rest are outwardly comprehended by something else which is greater, and are as it were shut up and abiding in their own home every one of them; and that none of these all is God. For to every one of them there will be somewhat wanting, occupying as it does a very small part in comparison of all the rest; and the title of Omnipotent will be abolished; so this way of thinking must needs end in Atheism.

Chap. II. § 1. But they who say that the world was framed by Angels, or by some other fabricator thereof contrary to His mind Who is Father above all:²⁵⁴* sin first in the mere circumstance of affirming such and so great a creation to have been wrought by Angels, contrary to the will of the First God. As though Angels were more powerful than God, or again as though He were negligent, or defective, or without care of what is done in His own dominions, whether it be done ill or well, to scatter and restrain the one, the other to approve with joy: now this no one would attribute even to a man of any skill: how much less to God!

§ 2. Moreover, let them in the next place tell us, whether these things were framed in the regions which are comprehended by Him,²⁵⁵* and are His own; or in regions not His own, and situated without Him. But if they say, without Him; all the above-mentioned absurdities will just as much stand in their way, and the First God will be inclosed by him who is without Him, in whom also He will of necessity terminate. But if in the regions which are His own: it will be very futile to say that against His mind, in His own regions, a world was framed, by Angels who are also in His power, or by any other; or as though He did not Himself look out on all things that are in His own place, so as not to know what the Angels will do.

§ 3. But if it were not contrary to His will, but with His consent and knowledge,²⁵⁶* as some think: no longer will the Angels, nor any Artificer of the World be the cause of this work, but the Will of God. For if there be a Framer of the World, He Himself made the Angels, or however was Himself the cause of their being created; and it will be seen that He was the Maker of the world, Who pre-arranged the causes of its formation. Though they say that the Angels or the Artificer of the world were made by a long succession downwards from the First Father, as Basilides says: nevertheless the real cause of the things that were made will be traced back²⁵⁷¹ as a stream even to Him from Whom that kind of succession emanated: as the success of a war is referred to the King who provided those things which are the cause of the victory; and as the founding of any state, or of any work, is referred to him who provided the means for the accomplishment of what was done in the inferior department²⁵⁸². Just as we say not that the axe hews the wood or the saw cuts it, but one would very properly say that the hewing and cutting was the work of a man: of him who made the very axe and saw for that purpose, and long before that made all the tools, whereby the axe and saw were manufactured. Thus then, by their argument, the Father of all will justly be termed the Artificer of this world, and not the Angels, nor any other maker of the world, except Him Who was the Producer, and Who first became a cause of what led to the aforesaid creation.

§ 4. Such a way of talking may perhaps be persuasive or beguiling to those who know not God,²⁵⁹* and liken Him to men who are poor, and who cannot immediately make any thing out of what is at hand, but need many tools for their manufacture: but it is altogether incredible with those who know that the God of all, needing nought, builded and made all by His Word, neither wanting Angels to help Him in His productions, nor any Virtue greatly inferior to Him and not knowing the Father, nor any defect nor ignorance, for the making of Man who might come to know Him: but Himself within Himself, in that way unspeakable and inconceivable by us, predestinating all, made them at His will; giving to all their proper harmony and order and beginning of existence: a substance spiritual and invisible to spiritual beings, heavenly to those which are above the heavens, and Angelical to Angels, and animal to animals, and watery to such as swim, and earthly to the earthborn, to all becoming their quality. All things moreover which were made, He made by His unweariable Word.

§ 5. For this is proper to the transcendent excellency of God,²⁶⁰* not to need other instruments for the creation of the things which are made; and His own Word is meet and able to form all things: as John also the Lord’s Disciple saith of Him;²⁶¹* All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made. Now the word All comprehends this world also of ours. Wherefore this too was made by His Word, as the Book of Genesis saith, that all that we are concerned with, God made by His own Word. In like manner David too expresses it: For He spake and they were made;²⁶²* He commanded and they were created. Which then shall we rather believe about the making of the world; these before-mentioned heretics, chattering so foolishly and inconsistently; or the Disciples of the Lord, and Moses God’s faithful Servant and the Prophet? Who also in the first place related the birth of the world, saying,²⁶³* In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth; and all the other things afterwards in order: God, not inferior gods, nor Angels.

§ 6. Now that this God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Paul also the Apostle hath said it:²⁶⁴* There is one God, the Father, Who is above all things, and through all things, and in all of us. We have now indeed shewn that there is one God: and from the same Apostles and from our Lord’s discourses we will further shew it. For what sort of thing is it, leaving the words of the Prophets, and our Lord, and the Apostles, to regard these who say nothing that is wholesome!

Chap. III. § 1. Wherefore the Deep which they talk of is a thing incongruous^265a; as is also this man’s^266b Pleroma, and Marcion’s God:²⁶⁷* if at least, as they say, it hath without itself somewhat which is a base to it, which they call Void, and Shadow: and this void is proved greater than their Pleroma. And this statement again is incongruous—that while it contains all within itself, yet something else was the artificer of the Creation. For they must necessarily confess that there is something void and without form, wherein was made this now existing Universe, beneath the spiritual Pleroma: and that this space without form, was left by him on purpose, the First Father either knowing or not knowing what would take place in it. And if indeed He was ignorant, God will of course not have foresight of all things. Yea, and they will have no cause to assign, why He left this space for so many ages unemployed. But if He foreknow, and did mentally consider the creation which was to be in that space, He Himself made it, forming it as He did beforehand within Himself.

§ 2. Let them cease therefore to say, that the world was made by another:²⁶⁸* for at one and the same moment did God conceive it in His mind, and that was wrought which He had mentally conceived. It not being even possible for one to conceive in his mind and for another to make what the first had so conceived. But God conceived the world in the way supposed by these Heretics, either eternal, or temporal: both of which is incredible. If however He had conceived it in His mind to be Eternal and spiritual, and an object of contemplation, such also would it have been made. But being such as it is, the Being Who made it such was of course the same Who had conceived it such in His mind. Or with the cognizance of the Father that Being willed it to exist according to the said mental idea, both compounded, and changeable, and transitory: and that being such as the Father had sketched out within Himself, it should be a work worthy of the Father. Now that which was mentally conceived by the Father of all, and formed before, as it was also made, to call this the fruit of defect, and an emanation from ignorance, is a word of great blasphemy. For according to them we shall have the Father of all, in the Idea of His own mind within His own bosom, giving birth to emanations from defect and fruits of ignorance; for such as He had conceived things in His mind, such also were they made.

Chap. IV. § 1. We may inquire into the cause of the Divine arrangement of which we have been speaking, but we may not attribute to another the framing of the world:²⁶⁹* and we are to say, that God prepared all things beforehand that they might come into being as they actually did; but we are not to be framing devices about a Shadow and a Void. Yea, and it may be asked, Whence is the Void? Whether is it also according to them produced by the Father and Producer of all, and equal in honour, and akin to the other Æons, perhaps too even elder than they? Now if it emanated from the same, it resembles Him from Whom and those with whom it emanated. It will follow then of absolute necessity, that the Deep whom they talk of, with their Silence, must resemble the Void, i.e., must be void: and that the other Æons, as brothers of The Void, must have their substance also void.—If on the other hand it be no emanation, it is self-born and self-begotten, and equal in time to that Deep the Father of all Whom they speak of: and so the Void will be of the same nature and honour with Him Whom they speak of, the Father of all. For it must either emanate from something, or be self-born and self-begotten.—But now if that which emanates be Void, the Producer of it too, Valentinus, is empty and void, void also are his followers. But if it be no emanation, but self-begotten: then that which is void is like, and as a brother, and equal in honour to the Father Whom Valentinus had before spoken of: but more ancient and greatly exceeding in age and honour all the other Æons of Ptolemy himself, and of Heracleon, and the rest who are of the same way of thinking.

§ 2. But if, being at a loss herein, they confess that the Father of all contains all things,²⁷⁰* and that there is nothing without the Pleroma (for else He must of absolute necessity have limits, and be compassed about by some greater Being): and that they use the terms “without” and “within,” to express knowledge and ignorance, not local distance: and that the things made by the inferior Creator, or by Angels, whatsoever we know to have been made, being within the Pleroma, or in the parts comprehended by the Father, are themselves comprehended by that Unspeakable Greatness, as a centre within a circle, or as a spot in a vesture: first of all, what sort of a being will The Deep prove, suffering a spot to take place within his own bosom, and permitting some other to create or produce, in his own regions, contrary to his own mind? A thing which would bring discredit upon the whole Pleroma, seeing that He might have cut off Defect from the beginning, and all the emanations which took their origin therefrom, and not allow things to receive any order of Creation with ignorance, or passion, or defect. For he who afterwards corrects a defect, or cleanses it out as a blot, might much sooner have taken care, that no such blot might at all occur in the things which are his. Or if he allowed it in the beginning, because what was made could not be made otherwise; they must needs take place always in like manner. For the things which admit not of correction at first, how are they to admit of it afterwards?

Or how say they that men are called out to perfection, when the very beings which are the efficient causes of men, whether it be the Creator himself, or certain Angels, are said to be in Defect? And if because He is kind, He pitied men in the last times, and is giving them perfection; He ought first to pity those who were the makers of men, and give them perfection. In which case man too of course would have received mercy, being made perfect by beings that were perfect. Since if He pitied their work, much more ought He to pity them, and not to permit them to come to so great blindness.

§ 3. Also their discourse about the Shadow and the Void will be refuted,²⁷¹* (wherein they say was made this creation which we belong to), if all this took place in the regions which are comprehended by the Father. For if they suppose that paternal light of theirs to be such as to have the power of filling all things and enlightening all things which are within Him; how could there be void or shadow in those parts which are comprehended by the Pleroma and the paternal light? For they must point to some place within the First Father, or within the Pleroma, not enlightened nor occupied by any thing, wherein either the Angels or the Creator made whatsoever he would. It being no small space, wherein such and so great a creation was made. It will be absolutely necessary then, that locally within the Pleroma,²⁷²* or within their Father they must make themselves something void and shapeless and dark, wherein were made whatsoever things were made. Also blame will fall on their Paternal Light, as though He were unable to enlighten and fill the parts that are within Him. And calling it all Fruits of Defect, and the Work of Error, they will be still introducing defect and error within the Pleroma, and into the bosom of the Father.

Chap. V. § 1. Against them therefore who maintain that this world was made without the Pleroma, or under “the good God,” what we said a little before^273c is appropriate; and the said persons with their Father will be shut up as in a prison by that which is without the Pleroma: in which they also must of necessity terminate.

But those who say that within the regions comprehended of the Father this world was made by certain other beings, will be met by all the absurdities and incongruities now mentioned: and they will be forced either to own that all that is within the Father is luminous, and full, and active; or to speak ill of the paternal Light, as not being able to enlighten all things; or as one part, so the whole of their Pleroma must be acknowledged to be empty and disordered and dark. And all other things as many as belong to creation, they speak ill of, as though they were but for a time^274d, or, if eternal, were made of matter. Whereas they must be free from all censure, being within the Pleroma and in the Bosom of the Father: otherwise the censures will spread in like manner over the whole of the Pleroma.

And their Christ is found to be a cause of ignorance. For by their account, he having in substance formed their Mother, cast her out beyond the Pleroma, i.e., cut her off from knowledge. He was himself therefore the cause of ignorance in her, who cut her off from knowledge. How then could he, the very same person, give knowledge to the other Æons, who existed before him, while to his Mother he caused ignorance. For he put her out of knowledge, throwing her out of the Pleroma.

§ 2. Yet further:²⁷⁵* if the phrases “within and without the Pleroma” are used by them, as some of themselves say, to express knowledge and ignorance; because he who is in knowledge is within that which he has cognizance of: the Saviour Himself (whom they affirm to be all things) they must needs allow to have been in ignorance. For they say that he, having come out beyond the Pleroma, formed their Mother. If then being without is in their speech ignorance of all things; and the Saviour went out to form their Mother; He came to be without the limits of the knowledge of all things, i.e., in ignorance. How could He furnish her with knowledge, being Himself without the borders thereof? For so we, being without the borders of their knowledge, are, they say, without the Pleroma. And again: If therefore the Saviour went out beyond the Pleroma to search for the Lost Sheep, and the Pleroma is knowledge, He came to be without the limits of knowledge; which means, “in ignorance.” For either they must allow something locally without the Pleroma, and so all the aforesaid incongruities will confront them; or if they use “within” in the sense of knowledge and “without” of ignorance, the Saviour they speak of, and long before him Christ, will have come to be in ignorance, when they went out of the Pleroma to form their Mother: i.e., out of knowledge.

§ 3. Now all this will apply in like manner against all who affirm the world to have been made either by Angels or by any other but the true God.²⁷⁶* For the fault they find about Fabricator of it, and about the things which were made material and temporal, will recoil upon the Father. For how come things to exist in the womb of the Pleroma, whose final dissolution was to begin presently? by the consent of the Father, and at His good Pleasure. Now then it is no more the Creator who is the cause of this work, thinking himself to be making it particularly well: but He Who in His People permits and approves emanations of Defect and deeds of error to take place, and among eternal things temporal, and among incorruptible things corruptible, and among the things of truth, those which are of error. If on the other hand these things were made without the permission and approbation of the Father of all: the other, who wrought in the Father’s own dominions any thing without His leave, is mightier, and stronger, and more sovereign than He. Again: if their Father, as some say, permitted without approving it; He permitted for some constraining cause, either when He had power to forbid, or when He had not power. If He had not power, He is weak and infirm; if He had, He is a deceiver and pretender, and a slave of necessity; not consenting, yet permitting as if He consented. And allowing error in the first instance to have substance and growth, in after times He tries to do it away, when now many have grievously perished because of this defect.

§ 4. But it is unmeet to say that He who is God over all, free as He is and independent, was a slave to any necessity,²⁷⁷* so as that somewhat should exist by allowance contrary to His decree: else they will make Necessity greater and more absolute than God, since what hath more power is before all in dignity. And he ought immediately in the beginning to cut off the causes of that necessity, and not to shut himself to the endurance of necessity, allowing something otherwise than becomes Him. Yea, much better and more consistent and more godlike were it, to cut off at first the very ground of that kind of necessity, than afterwards, as it were upon change of mind, to try to root out such abundant produce of necessity. And if the Father of all is to be the slave of necessity. And if the Father of all is to be the slave of necessity, and to be subject to fate, displeased with what is done, but unable to do anything contrary to necessity and fate:—(like the Homeric Jupiter, who says upon compulsion

²⁷⁸*For willing, when I gave, was I,

And yet I gave unwillingly:)

I say, by this rule, The Deep whom they talk of will be found the slave of necessity and fate.

Chap. VI. § 1. Further: how were either the Angels or the Maker of the world ignorant of the First God, being as they were in His own regions, and creatures of His, and preserved by Him? He might indeed be invisible to them,²⁷⁹* by reason of His excellency, but unknown He could in no wise be, by reason of His Providence. Yea, and however widely they might be separated from Him (as they say) in a downward line; yet, His Dominion being spread over all, they must needs have known Him ruling over them and have been aware of this at least, that He Who created them is Lord of all. For the combination in Him of Invisibility and Power helps all greatly to realize and perceive His most mighty and Almighty excellence.²⁸⁰* Wherefore, although no man knoweth the Father, save the Son, nor the Son, save the Father, and those to whom the Son hath revealed Him; yet thus much all know, the reason fixed in their minds acting upon them, and instructing them:—that there is One God, the Lord of all.

§ 2. And for this cause all things submit, when appeal is made to the Most High and Almighty One:²⁸¹* and by Invocation of Him, even before our Lord’s Advent, men used to be saved both from the worst of spirits, and from all kinds of dæmons, and from the whole apostate Power. Not as though the earthly spirits or dæmons had seen Him, but because they knew of the existence of Him Who is God over all, the Invocation of Whom did and doth cause trembling in every creature, in Principality, and Power, and every inferior Virtue. Or shall we say, that while those who are subject to the Roman Empire, though they have never seen the Emperor, but are widely separated from him by sea and land, recognize, because of his dominion, him who has the chief place in sovereignty over them; the Angels on the other hand who were above us, or he whom they call Artificer of the world, fail to recognise the Almighty, when even dumb animals tremble and give way at that invocation? And they are all subject to the name of our Lord, though of course they have not seen Him: so also are they subject to the appellation^282e of “Him Who made and ordered all,” He being no other than the very Creator of the world.²⁸³* And accordingly the Jews even to this day expel dæmons by this very form of address, because all things fear, when He is invoked Who made them.

§ 3. Except therefore they will have the Angels more irrational than the dumb animals,²⁸⁴* they will find that although they had not seen Him Who is God over all, yet they must needs have been aware of His Power and Dominion. For it will seem ridiculous indeed, if they affirm themselves who are on earth, to know the God above all Whom they never saw; and suffer not Him Who by their account made them and all the world, being as He is in the highest and above the Heavens, to know what is known to themselves, whose place is in the regions below. Unless haply they say that the Deep whom they talk of is under the earth in Tartarus, and that accordingly they first knew him, before the Angels who dwell on high: going on to such great folly, as to pronounce the Artificer of the world beside himself. Yea, they are indeed to be pitied, affirming that he in so extreme madness knew neither his Mother, nor her seed, nor the Pleroma of the Æons, nor the First Father, nor what his own handyworks were: but that they are images of the things which are within the Pleroma, the Saviour having secretly wrought upon him that they should be so made in honour of those who are on high.

Chap. VII. § 1. And so, whereas the Demiurge was ignorant of all, the Saviour, they say, did honour to the Pleroma in the Creation which He wrought by that mother,²⁸⁵* emitting similitudes and images of the things above. We however have shewn it impossible that there should be any thing without the Pleroma, wherein they say the images of the Beings within the Pleroma are formed: as also that this world should be framed by any but the First Deity. But if we took delight in overthrowing them on every side, and convicting them of falsehood, we might allege against them, That if things here were made by the Saviour in honour of things above, after their similitude, they ought to continue for ever, that the objects of honour might for ever receive that honour. But if they pass away, what is the use of this very short space of honour: of an honour which once was not, and again shall not be? At this rate we make out the Saviour to be rather a seeker of vain glory, than an honourer of the things above. For what honour to the eternal and everlasting things are those which are temporal? to the enduring, those which pass away? to the incorruptible, those which see corruption? Since even among men, who are but for a time, there is nothing delightful in that honour which quickly passes by, but in that which endures as long as possible. Whereas the things which are got rid of as soon as made, might be justly said to be made rather by way of insult to the supposed objects of honour: and the eternal to be injuriously treated by the spoiling and scattering of its image.

But what? except their Mother had wept, and laughed, and been at her wits’ end, would the Saviour have lacked means of honouring His Fulness, because that utter state of confusion had no substance of its own^286f, whereby to honour the First Father?

§ 2. O vain-glorious honour, presently passing away, and appearing no more! Suppose some Æon,²⁸⁷* in whose case no such honour is said to have been; then the things above will be unhonoured; or another Mother again must be sent forth, in tears and perplexity, for the honour of the Pleroma! O incongruous^288g yea also blasphemous Image! Ye talk to me of an Image of the Only Begotten, emanating from the Maker of the world, and you will have it to be the Mind of the Father of all, yet that this Image knows not either itself or the creation; neither indeed doth it know the Mother, nor any whatsoever among existing things, and those which were made by Him. And do ye not blush against yourselves, making Ignorance extend even to the Only Begotten? For if things here were made by the Saviour after the likeness of the things above; there being so much ignorance in him who is made after a certain pattern, the aforesaid ignorance must needs exist in and concerning Him also, in whose likeness the ignorant one is made. It not being possible, when both are spiritual emanations, not framed, nor put together, that he should have preserved in some respects, but in others have marred the resembling image²⁸⁹³, which was sent forth for this very end, to be like that emanation which is on high. Yea, and any want of resemblance therein will be a charge brought against the Saviour, for producing an image without likeness, like an artist whose works will not stand the test. For they may not speak as though the Saviour, whom they affirm to be All, had not power over His own production. If then the Image be unlike, the artist is a bad one, and it is, by their account, the Saviour’s fault. If on the other hand it be like, there will be the same ignorance found in the mind of their First Father, i.e., the Only Begotten: and the Father’s Mind knew not either itself or the Father, nor yet the things made by Him. But if He knows, then the person whom the Saviour made in His likeness must also know the things which bear His likeness: and we do away with the greatest blasphemy they have in their rule.

§ 3. And moreover, how is it possible for all creatures that are, so various and many and past numbering,²⁹⁰* to be images of those thirty Æons which are within the Pleroma, the same whose names (according to their statement) we have set down in the preceding book? And I say not the whole creation in its variety, but even any single part, either in the Heaven or the Earth or the Waters, will be found beyond their power to measure by the scanty reach of their Pleroma. For that their Pleroma consists of thirty Æons, themselves bear witness: and that in any single portion of the aforesaid there are^291h, not thirty but many thousand kinds, should men enumerate them, every one whatever will affirm without qualification. How then may things of such manifold formation, existing in contrary natures, and mutually opposed, and one destroying another, be images and similitudes of the thirty Æons of the Pleroma, since these by their statement are of one nature, of equal and like origin, and have no difference? Whereas if one are images of the other, it must follow that as some men, they say, are naturally bad, others naturally good, so we might point out like differences in the very Æons, and say that some of them are naturally good emanations, others naturally bad, to make their contrivance of an image suitable to their Æons. Once more, because there are in the world some things tame and others wild, some harmless, others mischievous and apt to spoil the rest: and again some earthly some watery, some in the air some in the heaven: in like manner they ought to maintain that their Æons are affected in the same way, if at least the one are images of the other.²⁹²* Yea, and the “eternal fire which the Father prepared for the Devil and his Angels,” they ought to to make out which it represents of the Æons that are above: for it too is counted as part of the Creation.

§ 4. But if they say, “Things here are images of the Thought of that Æon who suffered:”²⁹³* first they will be treating their mother with irreverence, ascribing to her the beginning of evil and corruptible images. And next, how should things so many and unlike and contrary in nature be images of one and the same Being? Should they further say, that there are many Angels in the Pleroma, and that those many things are images of them; neither so will their scheme hold together. For first they must point out distinctions, mutual contrarieties, in the Angels of the Pleroma, even as the images depending²⁹⁴⁴ on them are of a nature contrary to each other. Next, there being around the Creator many, yea innumerable Angels, as all the Prophets set forth—ten thousand times ten thousand stand before Him,²⁹⁵* and many thousand thousands minister unto Him:—by their account again the Creator’s Angels will be Images of the Angels of the Pleroma, and the entire Creation remains to be the image of the Pleroma, those thirty Æons no longer proving adequate to the manifold variety of Creation.

§ 5. Yet again: if this set of things was made after the likeness of that,²⁹⁶* in what other likeness shall the latter in its turn be made? For if the Framer of the world did not make these of himself, but like a workman of no consequence, and as a boy learning his first lesson, transferred them from patterns not his own; whence had he whom they call The Deep the forms of that order which first emanated from him? It follows then, that he received his standard from some other who is above him: and that other again from another. And just as before, the doctrine of images will sink in a sort of endless void, just as will the doctrine of gods, except we fix our thoughts upon one Sole Artificer, as upon one sole God, Who of Himself made all that was made. Or, while one permits men to have discovered of themselves something useful to life, doth he refuse leave to that God Who completed the world, to have been Himself the Maker of the Form of the things that are made, and the Inventor of the scheme of them with its accompaniments?

§ 6. Moreover, whence are one the images of the other,²⁹⁷* being contrary to them, and in nothing capable of participating with them? For contraries may indeed be destructive of their contraries, but images of them they can in no wise be: as water and fire, and light again and darkness, and so many other things, may by no means be images to each other. So neither may the corruptible and earthly and compound and transitory things be images of the spiritual things which answer to them: except they confess these latter too to be compound, and circumscribed, and figured, and no longer spiritual, and at large²⁹⁸⁵, and inexhaustible, and incomprehensible. For they must be figured and circumscribed, in order to be true images: and it is quite plain that such things are not spiritual. But if they affirm the first sort to be spiritual, and at large, and incomprehensible; how can such things as are figured and circumscribed be images of those which are without figure and incomprehensible?

§ 7. But if they say that these things are images, not in respect of figure and form,²⁹⁹* but in number and order of emanation: first, these ought not to be called Images and Similitudes of the Æons which are above. For how are those their images,³⁰⁰* which have neither their habit nor figure? Then again, what numbers and modes of emanation belong to the superior Æons, the same and like to them they ought to adapt to those Æons which belong to the creation. Whereas now, pointing out as they do thirty Æons, yet affirming the so great multitude of created things to be their images, we may justly charge them with folly.

Chap. VIII. § 1. If again they say that the one sort are the shadow of the other, as some of them do venture to say, so that in this sense they are images,³⁰¹* they must needs confess that the things too above are bodies. For it is those bodies which are above, which cast a shadow, not at all those things which are spiritual, since they cannot overshade any. Yea, and though we grant them this (which indeed is impossible) that the spiritual and bright things do cast a shadow, whereinto, they say, their Mother descended; nevertheless they being eternal, the shadow also which they cast remains to eternity; and so the things which are here do not pass away, but abide together with those which cast the shadow over them. If on the other hand these pass, those also must needs pass away, whereof these are the shadow: but if they endure, their shadow likewise endures.

§ 2. But if they say it is a shadow, not in that the light is intercepted,³⁰²* but in that these are widely separated from those; they will be blaming the littleness and infirmity of their paternal Light, as though it could not reach to things here, but failed in supplying the void, and dissolving the shadow, and that when there was no man to stand in the way. For by their account, their paternal Light will be changed into darkness, and blinded, and will fail in those parts which belong to the void, not being able to fill all things. No longer then let them call their Deep Pleroma of all things; since that which is void and shadow, He hath not filled, nor enlightened: Or again, let them give up their shadow and void, if indeed their paternal Light fills all things.

§ 3. Neither therefore external to the First Father, i.e., God over all, or to the Pleroma,³⁰³* can there be anything, into which,³⁰⁴* they say, the thought of the Æon which was somehow affected came down; lest the said Pleroma, or First God, be limited and circumscribed by that which is without; nor will it hold that there should be a Void or a Shadow, the Father before existing, lest His light fail and be limited by the Void. And it is irrational and impious to devise a place where He ceases and hath an end, Who by their account is First Father, and First Principle, and Father of all, yea of this Pleroma. Nor again is it lawful to say that within the bosom of the Father some other framed this great Creation, whether with or without His consent: and that for causes which have been stated.³⁰⁵* It being alike impious and foolish to say, that so great a creation was framed by Angels, or by some Emanation which knew not the true God, within the regions which belong to Him. And it is impossible that within their Pleroma, which is all Spiritual, things earthly and material were made: impossible, again, that beings of manifold creation, and contrary to each other, should be made after the image of those others, few as they are said to be, and of like formation, and all one. Moreover that part of their statement which relates to the Shadow of the Vacuum or Void, hath also been made out altogether false. And so, empty hath their device been proved, and incongruous their teaching; yea, and they too are empty who pay regard to them, going down verily into the depth of perdition.

Chap. IX. § 1. Now that God is the Artificer³⁰⁶⁶ of the world, themselves also hold, who in many ways contradict Him, yet confess Him, calling Him Artificer,³⁰⁷* and using the term Angel³⁰⁸ⁱ. Not to mention that all the Scriptures cry aloud, and the Lord teaches, that This is Our Father which is in Heaven,³⁰⁹* and not another: as we shall shew in the progress of our discourse. But for the present that witness is enough, which they bear who contradict us: all men in effect agreeing herein: first the ancients, both keeping especially this persuasion by tradition from the first-made Man, and honouring with hymns One God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, then the rest who came after them, receiving from God’s Prophets the commemoration of the same: and lastly the Gentiles learning it from the Creation itself. For the Creation of itself points to Him Who created it, and the thing made gives intimation of Him Who made it, and the world manifests Him Who set it in order. Moreover, the whole Church in all the world hath received this tradition of the Apostles.

§ 2. It being then agreed concerning this God as we have said,³¹⁰* and testimony given by all to His existence; doubtless that other, the Father whom they devise, hath no settled being, nor any to witness him: Simon the Sorcerer first affirming himself to be the God over all, and the world to be made by his Angels; and his followers afterwards, as we shewed in the first book, in their diverse opinions propagating impious and irreligious doctrines against the Creator: and these being their disciples, make their adherents worse than Gentiles.³¹¹* For they, serving as they do the Creature more than the Creator,³¹²* and them which are not Gods, do nevertheless give the first place in Deity to the God Who made this Universe. But these, denominating Him “the fruit of Decay,” and calling Him Animal, and ignorant of the Power which is above Him: affirming too that in the saying, I am God, and besides Me there is no other God, He lieth (while themselves are the liars): associating Him with all that is bad, and feigning that there is one (which there is not) above Him:—these are convicted by their own statement of blaspheming Him Who is really God, and feigning him to be God who is not, to their own condemnation. And they who call themselves perfect, and say they have exact knowledge of all things, are found worse than the Heathens, and more blasphemous in their way of thinking, even of their own Maker.

Chap. X. § 1. It is therefore utterly unreasonable, passing by Him Who is truly God, and is witnessed by all, to inquire whether there be this one above Him—who is not,³¹³* nor hath ever been announced by any one. For that nothing is expressly said of him, themselves too give testimony: and that parables, the sense of which is itself matter of inquiry, are by them unwarrantably shaped to suit him whom they have devised, and that so they produce another [God] now, who before was never looked alter: this is evident. Thus by their wanting to solve doubtful Scriptures (doubtful, I mean, not as to another God, but as to the ordained ways³¹⁴⁷ of God), they have framed another God: twining, as we said before; ropes out of sand, and producing a greater question out of a less. Whereas no question is to be solved by another point, which is itself questioned, nor will one ambiguity be done away by another, in the judgement of those who have understanding, nor one riddle by another greater riddle: but all such things receive their explanations from evident, congruous and clear considerations.

§ 2. But these men, seeking to explain Scriptures and Parables, introduce another,³¹⁵* a greater, yea an impious question, Whether there be another God above the God Who made the world: Thus they do not solve questions (how should they?) but to a lesser question they annex a great one, and insert a knot which cannot be disentangled. Thus, to make themselves sure that they know this, namely, that Our Lord at thirty years came to the Baptism of the Truth—a thing which they were never taught;³¹⁶* they impiously scorn God the Creator Who sent Him to save men. And that they may be supposed able to explain whence comes the substance of matter, not believing that God out of things that were not made all things that were made to be as He would, using His own Will and Power in the Place of Substance, they have put together vain discourses, truly declaring their own faithlessness. And because they believe not the things which are, they have sunk into that which is not.

§ 3. So as to their statement, that from the tears of Achamoth proceeded the moist part of matter,³¹⁷* and from her smile the bright part, and from her sadness the solid, and from her fear the moveable, and as to their being hereupon high-minded and puffed up; how can this be other than matter of Scorn and truly ridiculous? that men who believe not God’s creating matter itself, mighty and rich as He is in all things, because they know not the power of a spiritual and Divine Substance;—should yet believe that their Mother, whom they call a female born of a female, did by the aforesaid affections produce this great mass of creation! That while they make it a question, Whence the Creator was supplied with the substance of Creation, they made no question, whence their Mother, whom they call the Conception and effort of a wandering Æon, had so many tears, such sweat, so much sadness, or other ways of parting with her substance.

§ 4. For to ascribe the substance of the things which are made to the Power and Will of Him Who is God of all,³¹⁸* is credible, and approveable, and consistent: and to this subject may be well applied,³¹⁹* The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Because although men have no power to make any thing out of nothing, but only out of some subject matter, God on the contrary excels men in this first of all, that Himself devised the material of His work, which did not exist before. But to say that Matter was produced of the Conception of a wandering Æon, and that Æon widely separated from its own Conception, and again that the passion and affection of this latter take place even without its own substance, this is incredible, and foolish, and impossible, and inconsistent.

Chap. XI. § 1. And whereas on the one hand they refuse to believe that He Who is God over all did in the regions which belong to Him make by His Word at His own will things various and unlike,³²⁰* He being the Maker of all, as a wise Master builder, and very mighty King, while on the other hand, they believe that Angels, or some Virtue separate from God, and ignorant of Him, made this Universe:—in this way, you see, disbelieving the truth and wallowing in a lie, they have lost the Bread of true life, falling into a void and depth of shadow; like Æsop’s dog, which let go his bread, but rushed on the shadow of it, and lost his morsel. Now it is easy, even from our Lord’s very words, Who confesses one Father, and Maker of the world, and Framer of man, proclaimed also by the Law and the Prophets, and Who knows no other, to shew that the same is God over all: Who teaches also, and by Himself bestows on all just men, the adoption of sons to the Father, which is eternal life.

§ 2. Since however they love to find fault, and things which admit of no cavil they as cavillers disturb, bringing in upon us a multitude of Parables and Questions: we have thought it well in the first place to interrogate them in our turn concerning their doctrines, and to exhibit their want of probability and quite do away with their rashness: then afterwards to bring in the Lord’s discourses; that they be not simply amusing their leisure with statements, but upon their inability to answer orderly to the questions asked of them, seeing their own reasoning overthrown, may either return to the Truth, and humble themselves, and cease from their manifold imaginations, and so appeasing God for their blasphemies against Him, may be saved: or if they persevere in the vain boasting which has got hold of their minds, may change their way of reasoning.

Chap. XII. § 1. And first concerning their use of the number 30, thus we shall say, that it fails altogether in both respects, both in having too little and in having too much:³²¹* with a view to which number they say the Lord came to Baptism at 30 years’ old. And by this our statement, it will be plain that all their reasoning is overthrown. And in regard of defect, thus it is: first of all, by counting the First Father with the other Æons. For the Father of all ought not to be put in the same list with the rest, which come of emanation: He Who is not sent out, with that which is sent out: and the Unborn, with that which is born; and He Whom none comprehends, with that which is comprehended by Him (and therefore He is Incomprehensible): nor He Who is without form, with that which hath form. I mean, that in that respect wherein He is better than the rest, He ought not to be counted with them: and especially not with any Æon capable of suffering, and set in error, He Who is impassible and unerring. Because they, beginning from The Deep, reckon up their Thirty even unto Wisdom, whom they term the wandering Æon; as we have explained in the former book, and have set down the names of the same by their statement. But now if we count not Him, there come to be no longer, as they say, thirty emanations of Æons, but twenty nine.

§ 2. Afterwards again, in calling the first emanation Mind, which they also call Silence,³²²* from which again they say that Understanding and Truth emanated, in both they lose their way. For it is impossible that a person’s mind or silence should be conceived of as apart from himself or that it should emanate from the person and have a form of its own. But if they say it is not sent forth, but joined in one with the First Father; why do they reckon it with the other Æons, those which have no such union, and which therefore know not His greatness? And again, if it be thus united (this too we ought to consider) it is of absolute necessity,³²³⁸ the original Pair being united, and inseparable, and quite one thing, that the emanation also which takes place from it, should be undivided and united, not to be unlike that from which it emanated. And this being so, as The Deep and Silence are One, so also will be Understanding and Truth continually cleaving together. And since the one cannot be conceived of without the other, as neither can water without moisture nor fire without heat, nor a stone without hardness (for these things are mutually conjoined); therefore the one cannot be separated from the other, but must ever coexist with it. Thus both The Deep must be united with Mind, and Understanding in the same way with Truth. Again also The Word and Life having emanated from united beings, must be united, and one. Now according to all this, The Man also and and The Church and all that emanates from the other Æons, thus wedded together, must be united, and the one portion coexist always with the other. For the female Æon must exist along with the male, by their statement, being a kind of affection thereof.

§ 3. Yet for all these things, and for all these statements of theirs,³²⁴* they dare again shamelessly to teach, that the youngest Æon of the Twelve, whom also they call Wisdom, without access of her consort, whom they call The Desired, suffered I know not what, and apart from him bare fruit: which fruit they also term a Female, born of a Female. Wherein they have gone so far in madness, as to hold most evidently two contradictory opinions on the same thing. For if The Deep is united with Silence, and The Mind with Truth, and The Word with Life, and the rest in their order; how could Wisdom suffer or produce any thing unconnected with her consort? But if she suffered without him, the other pairs too must of course admit of mutual departure and separation: which is impossible, as we said before. Therefore it is also impossible for Wisdom to have suffered without The Desired; and their whole reasoning is again done away with. For of that which they say befel her without her consort’s embrace, they proceeded on to invent the whole plot (so to call it) of their Tragedy.

§ 4. But if they were shamelessly to say that the other several pairs also are separated from each other, because of the last pair, to prevent their vain talk from being refuted; first of all they urge a thing impossible. For how will they separate the First Father from His Thought, or The Mind from Truth, or the Word from Life, and the rest in like manner? And how do they say that both themselves are tending to unity, and that all are one, if even these pairs which are within the Pleroma keep no unity, but are at a distance from each other; so as even to suffer and to propagate their kind untouched by any other, as hens without the male bird?

§ 5. And after all, here is another way in which their first and original party of Eight will be broken up:³²⁵* There will be in their several modes of existence³²⁶⁹ in the same Pleroma, The Deep and Silence, The Mind and Truth, The Word and Life, The Man and the Church. But it is impossible that when the Word is present, Silence should be: or again that when Silence is present the Word should appear. For these things are mutually destructible. As Light and Darkness will by no means be in the same subject, but if it be light, it is not darkness, and where darkness is, light cannot be, for at the coming of the light, the darkness is dissolved: so, where silence is, the Word will not be; and where the Word is, of course silence is not. But if they speak of the Word as resting in the mind³²⁷¹, the Silence will be so too, and will be just as much done away with by the inward Word. However, that it is not merely inward, this very statement of the manner of their emanation implies.

§ 6. Now then let them not say that the first and chief Ogdoad consists of The Word and Silence, but let them do away with the one or the other of these: and so is their first and chief Ogdoad refuted. For if they say the pairs are blended, all their system falls to pieces. For how, they being blended, did Wisdom without a consort produce Defect? If on the contrary they say that as in emanation each of the Æons retains his own substance: how can Silence and The Word be manifested in the same? And thus much in the way of making out too little.

§ 7. Again in respect of making out too much, their party of thirty is again refuted as follows.³²⁸* There emanated, they say, from the Only-Begotten, as the other Æons, so Horus, whom they call by a great many names; as we said before in the preceding Book. Now this Horus, some say, emanated from the Only-Begotten, but others say, from the First Father Himself in His own likeness. A further emanation moreover, they say, took place from the Only-Begotten, Christ and the Holy Ghost, and these they count not in the number of the Pleroma, as neither do they the Saviour, whom they call besides The Whole. For this even a blind man can see, that by their account were sent out not thirty emanations only, but four likewise with those thirty. For they reckon the First Father Himself in the Pleroma, and those who by succession emanated one from another. Why, I ask, are these not to be counted with them, being in the same Pleroma and gifted with the same emanation? For what just cause can they lay down, why they number not with the other Æons, either Christ, whom they state to have emanated, with the Father’s consent, from the Only-Begotten: nor the Holy Spirit, nor Horus, whom they call also Redeemer: yea, not even the Saviour himself, who they say came to assist their Mother, and put her in form? Whether, as though these were far inferior to the other, do they therefore deem them unworthy to be even named and numbered as Æons; or as being better and more excellent? Nay, how should they prove inferior to all, sent out as they are for the very purpose of settling and correcting the rest? But on the other hand, they cannot be better than the first and principal quaternion, from which also they emanated; for that too is counted in the aforesaid number. But these too ought to be numbered in the Pleroma of the Æons; or else the other Æons should have the honour of the said title taken from them.

§ 8. Their Thirty being therefore once done away,³²⁹* as we have shewn, both in respect of defect and of excess (for in such a number if there be too much or too little, it will make the number fit to be rejected, how much more so many such faults!) the fable therefore about their Bands of Eight and of Twelve is ungrounded. Yea, and their whole rule is ungrounded, their very strong place being done away, and dissolved into The Deep, i.e., into that which is not. Let them therefore from this time forth seek other reasons to shew why the Lord at thirty years’ old came to Baptism: and also of the Twelve Apostles, and of her who suffered the issue of blood: and in whatsoever else they vainly toil and babble of.

Chap. XIII. § 1. Moreover, the first order itself of their Emanation is indefensible, as we thus prove. There emanated, they say, from The Deep and from His Thought,³³⁰* Mind and The Truth: which point is demonstrable the opposite way. For Mind is that very thing which is originative and chief, and in a manner the principle and fountain of all perception. But Thought, which comes from this, is a movement [thereof] of any kind or on any subject. It holds not therefore for Mind to be an emanation from the Deep and Thought: for it were more like truth, should they say, that of the Great Father and of this Mind, proceeded a daughter, Thought, by way of emanation. For Thought is not the mother of Mind, as they say, but Mind became the Father of Thought.

And how again did Mind emanate from the First Father,³³¹* occupying as it does the first and chiefest place of the hidden and invisible affection^332j which is within Him? From which capability are produced Sense, and Thought, and Conception, and such things: which are not other and apart from Understanding, but are the movements (such as they are) of that very faculty, as we said before, following each other in thought concerning any thing; receiving names from their continuation and increase, not from any substantial change, and limited for our knowledge’ sake, and all together communicated to the word: Perception abiding within and forming, and administering, and governing, freely and of its own power, and just as it will, the things which have been now mentioned.

§ 2. For the first motion thereof [i.e. of the Understanding] on any subject, is called a Thought; but when it goes on and spreads, and takes up the whole soul, it is termed an Imagination. But this Imagination dwelling long upon the same point, and being in a manner recognized, is named Reflection. And Reflection far extended becomes a purpose: and the growth of a purpose, and moving thereof far and wide, is mental Deliberation: which though it remain within the Mind is most properly called a Word; and from this proceeds the Emanative Word. Yet all the aforesaid are one and the same thing, receiving their beginning from the Understanding, and acquiring names as they are superadded. Much as the human body, now tender, now manly, now in old age, receives epithets from its growth and continuance, not from any change of substance, or loss of the Body itself: so is it here also. For what a man inwardly discerns, on that he also meditates; and what he meditates on, in that he is also skilled, and in what he is skilled, for that he also takes counsel, and for what he takes counsel, that he also plans in his mind; and what he plans in his mind, that he also speaks. But all these, as we said, are guided by Understanding: itself being invisible, and from itself by the aforesaid means, as by a ray, sending forth the Word, but itself not sent forth of any.

§ 3. And of men indeed it is allowable to speak thus,³³³* compound as they are in nature, and made up of body and soul. But those who say that Thought emanated from God, and Mind from Thought, and so from them in order, The Word; are first to be refuted as misapplying the notion of emanations; afterwards again as framing their descriptions from human affections and passions and energies, while of God they know nothing. Here for instance, they apply to the Father of all the conditions of human speech; to Him, Who all the while they say is unknown to all; and while they deny that He made the world, lest forsooth He should be thought insignificant, they nevertheless assign to Him the affections and passions of men. But if they had known the Scriptures, and been instructed by the Truth, they would know of course that God is not as men are, neither are His Thoughts as the thoughts of men.³³⁴* For very distant is the Father of all from these affections and passions, which befall mankind: and He is simple and uncompounded, and of like members, and Himself entirely like and equal to Himself; being as He is all Mind, and all spirit, and all perception and all thought and all reason, and all hearing, and all eye, and all light, and all over the fountain of all good things: such are the expressions concerning God, which suggest themselves to the devout and pious.

§ 4. Now He is beyond all expression in words, to a degree above all this,³³⁵* yet also because of all this. Thus He shall be well and rightly termed a Mind apt to receive all objects, but not like the Mind of men; and Very well shall He be called Light, but nothing resembling the light which is with us. So neither in any other respect will the Father of all resemble any weakness of men. And though for Love’s sake He is spoken of in these ways, yet for greatness we feel that He is above all these. If therefore even in men the Mind itself does not emanate, neither is that [faculty] separated from the living person, from which itself other things emanate, only its motions and affections come within observation; much less will God, Who is All Mind, be in any wise separated from Himself, nor will it be in Him as when one thing emanates from another.

§ 5. For if He in that way sent out Mind;³³⁶* the sender forth thereof, by their account, is understood to be a compounded and corporeal Person; and so we have a separate existence, on the one hand, of God, from Whom the emanation took place, on the other hand of the Mind which emanated. But if they say, Mind emanated from Mind; they cut in pieces and apportion the Mind of God. And whither, and whence, did it emanate? For that which emanates from any thing, emanates into some subject. But what subject was in existence earlier than the Mind of God, into which they affirm it to have emanated? Yea, and how great was the room, to receive and embrace the Mind of God? But if they say it was as the ray from the Sun: even as among us the air exists as a subject to receive the ray, and must be of elder existence than the ray itself: so in that region let them shew somewhat existing into which the Mind of God emanated; something apt to receive it and elder than it. Moreover it will be necessary, as we see the Sun, less in size than all things, sending out rays to a distance from itself, so to affirm of the First Father that He sent forth a ray without Himself and to a distance. But what can be imagined without God, or far from Him, into which He sent forth His Ray?

§ 6. But if they say, It emanated not without the Father, but is in the Father Himself:³³⁷* first of all the expression will be unmeaning, that it did at all emanate. For how did it emanate, if it was within the Father? For emanation is the manifestation of that which emanates exterior to him who sends it forth. Then again, after such emanation, the Word also which comes thereof will have his existence within the Father, and so too will the other emanations of the Word. Now then they will not be ignorant of the Father, being within Him; nor according to the scale of descending emanations will any one have less knowledge of Him, all being alike on all sides comprehended by the Father. Yea, and they will all alike abide impassible; being in the bowels of the Father, and no one of them will be in a state of deficiency. For the Father is not a Being in deficiency: except perchance, as in a great circle a lesser one is contained, and in this again another still less; or, as by some similitude of a sphere or of a square, they affirm the Father to comprehend within Himself all ways, in the likeness of a sphere, or in a quadrangular form, the rest of the emanating Æons, each one of them being circumscribed by that which is above it, being greater, and circumscribing that which comes after it, being less; and that accordingly the least and last of all being stationed in the centre, and far separated from the Father, knew not the first Father. If however they so speak, they will shut up in figure and outline Him Whom they call The Deep, as both circumscribing and being circumscribed: for they will be also forced to confess that there is somewhat also without Him, which circumscribes Him. And nevertheless their statement will lose itself in infinity concerning the Beings which contain and are contained, and all will evidently appear to be inclosed bodies.

§ 7. And besides this, they must either confess Him to be void, or whatsoever is within Him,³³⁸* all those beings will alike be partakers of the Father. As in the water if you make circles, or round or square figures, all these will alike partake of the water: as also what things are framed in the air must needs partake of the air: and those in the light, of the light: so also those who are within the Father, will all alike partake of Him, ignorance having no place among them. For where there is participation of the Father, filling all (if indeed He do fill all) there ignorance may not be^339k. Thus will be refuted their work of deterioration, and the emanation of matter, and the rest of their framing of the world; all which things they say had their being from passion and ignorance. If on the other hand they allow Him to be void, falling into exceeding blasphemy, they will deny His Spirituality. For how is he spiritual; who cannot even fill up the spaces³⁴⁰¹ that are within Himself?

§ 8. Now this which hath been said of the sending forth of Mind is equally suited for a reply to those who are on Basilides’ side; as also to the other Gnostics from whom these among others received the root of their doctrine of Emanations,³⁴¹* as has been proved against them in the first Book.

Now then that the first emanation of their Νοῦς,³⁴²* i.e., of their Mind, is open to refutation and impossible, we have evidently shewn. But let us consider of the rest also. For from him they say emanated The Word and The Life, framers of this Pleroma: adopting also from what befals man a certain mode of emanation of the Logos, i.e., of the Word, and making conjectures contrary to God; as though there were some great discovery in their statement, that the Word emanates from the Mind. Whereas all of course know, that in regard of men indeed this is properly said, but in Him Who is God over all, being as He is All Mind and All Word, as we have said before, and having in Himself nothing earlier or later, nor any thing belonging to another, but continuing altogether equal and alike and one, no such emanation in that kind of order is conceivable. As he sinneth not who calls Him all sight and all hearing (now wherein He sees, therein also He hears; and wherein He hears, therein also He sees); so likewise whosoever saith that He is all Mind and all Word, and that in Whom Mind is, in Him also is the Word, and that this Mind is His Word:—that man will indeed still have inadequate notions of the Father of all; more becoming however than these, who transfer to the eternal Word of God the mode of production of the uttered word of man, assigning also a beginning and a regular course to that production, even as to his own word. And how will the Word of God, yea rather God Himself, being the Word, differ from the word of men, if it had the same succession and emanation in its mode of being produced?

§ 9. And they erred also concerning Life, saying that it was sent forth in the sixth place;³⁴³* whereas the should set it before all, because God is Life, and Incorruption, and Truth. And they have undergone processes of emanation, not in the way of actual descent, or any such things; rather they are names given to those Virtues which are always with God, so far as it is possible and meet for men to hear and to speak of God. For together with the term God will be understood Mind, and the Word, and Life, and Incorruption, and Truth, and Wisdom, and Goodness, and all such things. And neither can one say that Mind is more ancient than Life (for Mind itself is Life); nor that Life comes later in comparison of Mind, lest we make Him at some time lifeless, Who is the Mind of all, i.e., God. But if they should say, Life was indeed in the Father, but it was put forth^344m in the sixth place, that the Word might live: much sooner surely ought it to have emanated in the fourth place, that Mind might live: nay yet before this, with The Deep, that their Deep might live. But to count Silence along with their First Father, and to assign her to Him for a wife, and not to include Life in the reckoning, how is it not above all folly?

§ 10. But concerning that which follows these, the second emanation of the Man and the Church,³⁴⁵* their very parents, the men of Knowledge falsely so called, contend with each other, claiming each their own rights, and convicting themselves of being bad thieves; saying (as is plausible) that it better suits the idea of emanation, for the Word to proceed from the Man, than the Man from the Word; and that there exists a man before the Word, and that this is He Who is God over all. And thus far, as we said before, all the affections of men, and movements of the mind, and productions of various kinds of thought and utterings of words they have made out by probable conjecture, but without probability have feigned them concerning God. That is, the things which befall men, and which they recognize as experienced by themselves, those they apply to the reason of God, and so appear to those who know not God to speak with propriety; and while by these human passions they pervert their understanding, while they talk of generation and emanation as befalling the Word of God in the fifth degree, they profess to be teaching wonderful mysteries, unspeakable, and high, and known to no one else; of which, they say, our Lord spake the words, Seek and ye shall find: that they might seek forsooth, how Mind and Truth proceeded from the Deep and Silence; whether again of these come the Word and Life; finally from the Word and Life the Man and the Church.

Chap. XIV. § 1. Much more naturally and more elegantly concerning the origin of all things spake one of the old Comic Poets, Antiphanes in his Theogony.³⁴⁶* For he said that of Night and Silence Chaos was produced, then from Chaos and Night, Desire, and from this Light, then in order the rest of that family of the gods, which is first in his account. After these again he brings in a minor generation of gods, and construction of the world; next from the minor gods he relates the formation of men. From this they have adopted their legend and have made it out as in a sort of phycal exposition, changing only the names of the Beings, but setting forth the very same origin and way of production for the generation of all. For Night and Silence, they use the names Bythus and Sige; for Chaos, Mind; and for Desire (by which, saith the Comic Poet, all things are ordered), these men have brought in the Word; and for the first and chiefest gods, they have formed Æons; and for the minor gods, they tell of that Œconomy of their Mother’s which is without the Pleroma, calling it the second Ogdoad; from which they relate, as he did, the making of the world and the moulding of men, professing to be alone aware of certain unspeakable and unknown mysteries. What Actors every where in theatres recite as actors in the most ornamented tones, that they transfer to their own subject: or rather they teach by the very same arguments, altering nothing but the names.

§ 2. And not only are they convicted of bringing forward as their own the statements of the Comic Poets,³⁴⁷* but also whatever is said among all who know not God, and who are called Philosophers, that they collect, and stitching it together like patchwork of many and very bad morsels of cloth, have contrived themselves a feigned cloke by their subtle talk: introducing a learning which is new, inasmuch as it is but now put in place of another by a new stroke of art; but which is also old and useless, seeing that these same additional bits are made up of old dogmas, smelling rank of ignorance and irreligion. Thales for instance, the Milesian, said that water is the origin and beginning of all things. But it is all one to say Water, and The Deep. The Poet Homer again hath laid it down that Ocean is the originator of the gods, and Thetis their Mother: which very saying these have transferred to the Deep and Silence. And Anaximander hath supposed for the beginning of all, Infinite Space, having in itself seminally the origin of all; of which space, he says, immeasurable worlds are made: and this too they have transferred to their Deep and Æons. And Anaxagoras, who was also surnamed the Atheist, taught for doctrine that animals were made by the seeds of them falling from Heaven to Earth: a thing which these too have transferred to the offspring of their Mother, and say that they are themselves this offspring: thus at once owning in the sight of sensible persons, that themselves are the very seeds of the irreligious Anaxagoras.

§ 3. But as to the Shadow and Void which they speak of, they took it from Democritus and Epicurus,³⁴⁸* and adapted it to themselves, those Philosophers having in the first place discoursed much of a Vacuum, and of Atoms: the one of which they said was something, while the other they called that which is not: much as these men proclaim those things to be, which are within the Pleroma, as those the Atoms, and those not to be, which are without the Pleroma, as those the Void. Themselves therefore in this world, being without the Pleroma, they have placed by conjecture in the place of non-existence. And as to their affirming that things here are the images of real Beings, again most evidently they set forth the opinion of Democritus and Plato. For Democritus first says, that many and various figures, copied from the Universe, descended into this world. But Plato again speaks of Matter and the Archetype, and God. And they, following them, have styled his Ideas and his Archetype, Images of the things on high: under this change of name boasting themselves to be inventors and framers of the aforesaid imaginary fiction.

§ 4. Again, their saying that the Fabricator made the world of pre-existing matter,³⁴⁹* had been said before them by Anaxagoras, Empedocles and Plato: who, as of course we are to understand, were themselves also inspired by those Men’s Mother. Moreover, that of necessity each thing withdraws itself towards the materials out of which by their account it was made, and that God is the slave of this Necessity, so that He cannot add immortality to the mortal, nor bestow incorruption on the corruptible, but that every person retires³⁵⁰ⁿ into that substance which is akin to his own nature: this both they affirm, who from the Porch are called Stoics, and all as many as know not God, whether Poets or other writers. Who cherishing the same temper of unbelief,³⁵¹* have assigned to them that are spiritual their proper country, that which is within the Pleroma; to the merely animal, the middle space; and to the corporeal, that which is earthly; and that beyond these limits they say God hath no power, but that each of the aforesaid kinds of persons must retire towards the portions of the same substance with himself.

§ 5. Again, whereas they say that our Saviour was made of all Æons,³⁵²* all depositing in Him (so to speak) the flower of their being: they bring nothing new, in addition to Hesiod’s Pandora. For what Hesiod says of her, these imply concerning our Saviour, bringing Him in for a kind of Pandorus, as though each one of the Æons had bestowed on Him the best thing he had. And even their indiscriminate opinion concerning meats and other actions, and their notion that nothing at all can pollute them because of their high origin, eat they or do what they will, these things they have inherited^353o from the Cynics, being of one and the same league with them. And frivolous talk, and subtilty of disputation, being of Aristotelian origin, they try to bring into the Faith.

§ 6. But as to their notion of translating this whole world into certain numbers, they took it from the Pythagoreans.³⁵⁴* For these laid down numbers as the first principle of all things, having again as their own principle the Even and the Odd; out of which they framed by conjecture both sensible things and things beyond sense. And the one set they said were principles in the way of furnishing matter, the other in the way of Thought and real essence; out of which as original elements they say all is made up, as a statue of its metal and mouldings. And this they applied to all things without the Pleroma. Now by Principles in the way of Thought they meant, in whatsoever cases the mind, taking note of the object which was first received into it, goes on seeking until wearied out it terminate in some one indivisible thing. Moreover, the beginning of all, they say, and the substance of all productive power, is the Unit, i.e., One; and after this the Duad and the Tetrad and the Pentad, and the manifold origination of the rest. All this, word for word, our men say of their Fulness and Deep. Whence also they strive to introduce their combinations which proceed out of absolute Unity; all which Mark boasting as his own, thought he had discovered as something rather new, apart from others, while he was setting forth Pythagoras’ way of producing the number Four as the origin and mother of all things.

§ 7. And we shall say in reply to them,³⁵⁵* Whether did all these before-mentioned, with whose sayings yours are proved identical, know the truth, or not know it? Since if they knew it, the descent of the Saviour into this world was superfluous. For to what end did He come down? To bring that truth which was already known within the cognizance of the persons who know it? If on the other hand they knew it not, how is it that ye, saying the same as these who knew not the Truth, boast that ye alone have the knowledge which is above all, which knowledge they also have, who are ignorant of God? By a sort of ironical contradiction, then, they call ignorance of the Truth, Knowledge:³⁵⁶* and well saith Paul, “Novelties in words belonging to a false kind of knowledge.” For their knowledge is indeed found false. But if they shamelessly rejoin hereto, That men indeed knew not the truth, but that their Mother, or the Seed of the Father, did by such men also, as also by the Prophets, declare the mysteries of the Truth, the Framer of the World knowing nothing of it; I answer, first, That the aforesaid statements were not such as to be understood by no one: for the men themselves knew what they said, and their disciples, and the successors of these. And secondly, be it either mother or offspring, if they knew and declared the sayings of Truth, and the Father is Truth, then the Saviour, according to them will have lied in saying,³⁵⁷* No man hath known the Father but the Son. For if He was known either by the Mother, or by her seed, that saying, That no man hath known the Father but the Son, is refuted: except they say that their seed or their Mother is No man.

§ 8. Now thus far, by impressions usual with men,³⁵⁸* and by statements akin to those of many who know not God, there has been a seeming plausibility in their mode of drawing off certain persons; they entice them, by means to which they have been used, to their mode of discourse on all subjects; setting forth a certain origin for God’s word and for Life, doing moreover a midwife’s part to the productions of Mind, and of God. But in what follows, without plausibility, and without proof, they have uttered all lies from all quarters. Like those who, to take some animal, throw out the usual baits and means of allurement, gently enticing it by its wonted kinds of food, until they take it; but once having made them captive, bind them with all bitterness, and lead and drag them off by force at their own will; even so do these; gradually and gently persuading men by plausible discourse to adopt the aforesaid [doctrine of] emanation, they make inferences not at all consistent, other kinds of emanations, for which the mind was unprepared. For first they speak of ten Æons emanating from the Word and from Life, then of twelve from the Man and the Church. I say having neither demonstration for all this, nor testimonies nor probability nor any such thing at all, but just simply and at random they would have you believe them, that of the Word and Life, being Æons, emanated The Profound and Commixture, The Undecaying and Union, The Natural [or Self-Originated] and Pleasure, The Unmoved and Incorporation, The Only-Begotten and the Blessed One. And that from the Man and the Church being in like manner Æons, emanated 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.

§ 9. But what they say as to the passions and wandering of this last,³⁵⁹* Wisdom, and how she was in danger of perishing through her search of the Father, and her doings without the pleroma, and from what kind of decay they say the Framer of the World emanated, we have expounded with all diligence in the former book, setting forth the opinions of the Heretics: about Christ also, or the Saviour whose emanation they say was by birth after all these; or, that he had his being from the Æons who fell into decay. Nor could we avoid reciting those names, thereby to manifest their absurd falsehood, and the confusion of their arbitrary nomenclature—yea, they themselves disparage their Æons by many of these their titles; while the Gentiles give probable and credible names to those who are termed their twelve gods:—whom indeed they will have to be also Images of the twelve Æons, whereas the names of the images are far the more apt and powerful of the two, being such as by their etymology they may connect with some divine association.

Chap. XV. § 1. But let us return to the aforesaid question of emanations. And first, let them give us some such account of the emanation of Æons,³⁶⁰* as not to touch upon grounds which belong to the Creation. For these things, they say, came not into being because of Creation, but Creation because of them. Neither do they call them the images of present things, but present things their images. As therefore they account for the images by saying, that the month (e.g.) has thirty days because of the thirty Æons, and the day twelve hours, and the year twelve months, because of the twelve Æons within the Pleroma, and whatever of like dotage they utter:—let them now give us a like account of the emanation of the Æons, why it took place so and so: and why was the first of all, the original emanation, a group of eight, and not of five, or three, or seven, or something limited by some other number? And why did ten Æons emanate from the Word and Life, and not more nor less? and again from the Man and the Church twelve, when they too might have proved more or fewer?

§ 2. The Whole Pleroma again, why is it in three parts, of eight, and ten, and twelve, and not in any other number besides these? And the division too itself, why is it made into three, and not into four, or five, or six, or some other number, without reference to any of those numbers which appertain to the Creation, conspiring towards its harmony? (For these, they say, are older than those, and they ought to have a principle of their own, that namely, which is before Creation, not that which is copied from Creation.)

§ 3. As for us, asserting this harmony concerning Creation,³⁶¹* we mean that things are adjusted by such and such a principle of order, such principle being convenient for the things that are made. But they not being able to allege any proper cause of those earlier results, which are perfect in themselves, must needs fall into extreme perplexity. For whereas they ask us, in our supposed ignorance, certain questions concerning the Creation, themselves being in reply asked the same questions concerning the Pleroma, will either tell us of such things as men are liable to, or will fall into discourse about the harmony of Creation; the latter answer being irrelevant, and the former unsuitable to them. For our question refers not to the harmony of Creation, nor to human affections: but since their Pleroma, of which they say the Creation is the image, is of eight, ten, or twelve forms, we want them to confess that it was made of that figure by their Father without cause or forethought, and they will array Him in confusion, if He made any thing thus irrationally. Or if, on the other hand, they will affirm that by the Father’s Providence the Pleroma was thus produced, for the Creation’s sake, He having well ordered by measure the being thereof; it follows that the Pleroma will not have been made for itself, but for the image which was afterwards to exist in the likeness thereof. Just as the statue of clay is not formed for its own sake, but for the sake of that which is to be made of brass or gold or silver. And so the Creation will be more honoured than the Pleroma, if for its sake those higher beings were produced.

Chap. XVI. § 1. But if they will not assent to either of these statements, because they will be refuted by us, not being able to render a reason of the aforesaid production of their Pleroma,³⁶²* they will be driven and shut up into a confession of some other order of things above their Pleroma, more spiritual and of more absolute authority, according to which their Pleroma was shaped out. For if the Fabricator did not of himself form the outline of the Creation so and so, but after the figure of the things above: from whom did that same Being whom they call The Deep, who of course wrought out the Pleroma to be of that figure—from whom did He receive the form of the things which were made before Himself? Thus the mind must either stay itself upon that God Who made the world, that of His own power and from Himself He received the model of the world’s formation: or if a man once swerve from this, there will be always need of inquiry, whence He Who is above the Creator had His pattern of the things which are made;—what was the number of emanations, and what the very archetypal substance. But if the Deep had power of himself to frame such and such an image for the Pleroma, why had not the Fabricator just as much power of himself to make the world in the same way? Again therefore [I ask], If the Creation is an image of those other existences, what hinders our saying that those are images of what is above them, and those above them again of others, and so to cast ourselves into endless images of images?

§ 2. This was the case with Basilides; who having fallen far short of the truth, yet thought to escape the aforesaid difficulty by an infinite series of things made in turn by one another: asserting as he did 365 heavens framed one by another in the way of succession and resemblance, and the token of them to be the number of days in the year, as we before said: and over these the Virtue which they call Unnameable, and the order adopted by the same. Yet neither so did he avoid the said difficulty. For if you ask him, “Whence has that heaven, which is above all, from which in succession he will have the others to be made, whence has it the pattern of its formation?”—he will say, “From the order which the Unnameable one adopted.” And he will either say that the Unnameable one made it of Himself, or he will be forced to allow that there is some other power above Him, from which his Unnameable one received this great model of the things which He hath ordered.

§ 3. How much safer, then, and more accurate, at once from the beginning to confess, that which is indeed true, that this God, the Framer, Who made such a world, is God alone, and there is none besides Him, Himself of Himself receiving the pattern and figure of the things which are made:—than to be compelled in very weariness, after such a range and round of impiety, to settle the mind upon some one Being, and to own that of Him is the formation of things made!

§ 4. For in truth what the Valentinians impute to us, saying that we “linger in the lowest Seven,”³⁶³* as though we raised not our mind on high, nor perceived the things above, because we do not receive their prodigious talk: this very same is laid to their charge by Basilides and his set, as though they were yet wallowing in the lower parts, as far as the first and second Ogdoad, and ignorantly thought that after thirty Æons they had presently found the Father Who is above all, not tracing Him onwards by thought into the Pleroma which is above the 365 Heavens, into more than the 45th Ogdoad. And these again one might justly blame, if one devised 4380 Heavens, or Æons, because the days of our year have so many hours. And if one add those of the nights too, doubling the aforesaid hours, imagining that he has invented a great crowd of fresh Ogdoads, and I know not what innumerable matter of Æons, in lieu of Him Who is Father over all, and this with a blind notion that he is himself more perfect than all:—still to all the rest he will impute the same errors; viz., that they attain not to the height of that multitude of heavens, or Æons, which he himself named, but falling short abide either in the lower or in the middle spaces.

Chap. XVII. § 1. Having then so great incongruities and perplexities in the order implied by their Pleroma, and especially in that part of it which relates to the first Ogdoad;³⁶⁴* let us go on to consider the rest; we too, because of their folly, inquiring about the things which are not: and doing this too of necessity, because the care of this subject is intrusted to us,³⁶⁵* and we would have all men to come to the knowledge of the truth: also because thou thyself hast requested to receive from us many and various topics for refuting them.

§ 2. It is enquired, then, how the other Æons were produced? Was it in union with Him who produced them,³⁶⁶* as the rays from the sun: or in real efficacy, and by separation, so that each of them may exist separately, and having his own form; as man is produced by man, and beast by beast: or in the way of growth; as boughs by a tree? Again: were they of the same substance with those who produced them, or did they have their substance from some other? Again: were they produced in the same point, so as to be contemporaneous; or in a certain order, so as for some of them to be older, others younger? And did they emanate like spirits and rays of light, simple and uniform and in all respects mutually equal and similar: or compounded and different, from want of resemblance in their parts?

§ 3. But now if each of them was produced,³⁶⁷* as men are, in real efficacy and by a birth of his own: the generations of the Father will either be of the same substance with Him, and like to Him who produced them; or if they be found unlike, we must needs confess them to be of some other substance. Again if the productions of the Father are like Him who produced them, they will remain impassible, as He is: but if they are of some other substance, capable of passions: whence came this incongruous substance within that Pleroma, which is all of Incorruption? And moreover, in this way each will be conceived of as divided from the other by a real separation, as men are; not mingled nor united together, but with distinct form and definite outline and a certain size will each of them be marked out; and these are properties of body, not of spirit. Let them not say then any longer that it is a spiritual Pleroma, nor that themselves are spiritual: since their Æons, like men, sit feasting with their father, who is himself too of the like figure; a fact disclosed concerning him by those who have emanated from him.

§ 4. If again, as lights kindled from another light, so the Æons are from the Word, and the Word from the Mind, and the Mind from the Deep, in the manner, for example, of tapers kindled from another taper; in origination perhaps and in magnitude they will indeed be separate from each other, but being of the same substance with Him from Whom their emanation began, either they all remain impassive, or their Parent also will share in what befalls them. Even as that taper which is later in being lit, will have no other light than that which was before it. For which cause also their lights when blended, hasten back to their original union, one only light ensuing, the same which was also from the beginning. But the terms “younger” and “more ancient” can neither be understood of the light itself (for the whole light is one), nor of the tapers which received the light (for these too in their material substance are of the same date, for the tapers are of one and the same material): but only of the enkindling, in that one was lit a short time before, another just now.

§ 5. The reproach therefore implied in suffering through ignorance will either befall their whole Pleroma alike,³⁶⁸* they being of the same substance; and their first Father will be in the reproach of ignorance, i.e., ignorant of Himself: or all the lights within the Pleroma will continue alike impassive. Whence then can any suffering befall the younger Æon, if there is a Paternal Light, out of which all the lights are formed, which is by nature impassive? And how can any Æon among them be called younger or older, when there is but one Light appertaining to the whole Pleroma? And should any one call them Stars, yet all will be found partaking of the same nature.³⁶⁹* For what if one star differeth from another star in glory? it is not in quality nor in substance, in respect of which a thing is passible or impassive: but either all appertaining to the paternal Light, must be naturally impassive and unchangeable; or all, with the paternal Light, are both liable to suffering, and capable of wasting changes.

§ 6. Moreover this same rule will hold, should they say that the emanation of the Æons originates from the Word as branches from a tree;³⁷⁰* the Word having his generation from the Father, whom they talk of. For all are found to be of the same substance with the Father, differing from each other in magnitude only, but not in nature, and completing the magnitude of the Father, as the fingers complete the hand. If therefore the Father is in suffering and ignorance, so of course are the Æons who are generated from Him. But if it is impious to ascribe ignorance and suffering to the Father of all, how say they that there was produced from Him an Æon liable to suffering? and that, calling themselves religious, while against the very Wisdom of God they devise the aforesaid impiety?

§ 7. But if, as rays from the sun, so they will say their Æons had their production:³⁷¹* they being all of the same substance and of the same origin, will either be all capable of suffering,³⁷²* together with Him who produced them: or will all continue impassive. For they cannot surely maintain that upon such production some would prove impassive, some liable to suffering. If then they say all are impassive, themselves do away with their own argument. For how did the younger Æon suffer, if all were impassive? If again they say that all shared in this suffering, as some dare to affirm that it began from the Word, but was derived onward into Wisdom; then by referring the suffering to the Word, the Mind of this their First Father, they are convicted of maintaining that the Mind of the First Father and the Father too Himself was in suffering. For the Father of all is not like some compound creature, excluding Mind (as we have shewn before); but The Father is Mind, and Mind is The Father. It follows therefore necessarily both that the Word which is from Him, or rather the Mind itself, being the Word [or Reason] should be perfect and impassive: and that those emanations which are of him, being of the same substance with himself, should be perfect and impassive, and continue always alike, with him who produced them.

§ 8. It could not be then that the Word, being in the third stage production,³⁷³* was ignorant of the Father, as these teach. For this may perhaps be thought probable in the birth of men, being they are often ignorant of their own parents; but in the Word of the Father it is altogether impossible. For if, being in the Father, he hath knowledge of Him in Whom he is, i.e., of himself, he is not ignorant: and the emanations which proceed from him, being Virtues of his, and always standing by him, will not be ignorant of him who produced them; as neither will the rays of the Sun.

It will not then hold that the Wisdom of God, that which is within the Pleroma, being of such origin, became liable to suffering, and underwent such ignorance. Though it be possible that the Wisdom which is of Valentinus, having its origin from the Devil, may fall into all kinds of suffering, and bring forth the fruit of deepest ignorance. Yea, since themselves bear witness of their Mother, saying that she is the production of a wandering Æon, we have no further need to inquire the cause, why the sons of such a Mother should be always swimming in the deep of ignorance.