One God. Their blasphemy against the whole Trinity. 151 tion of a shews the system rupt futility, of their rule, what hath been said is sufficient: Refutathere being no need (as the saying is) to drink up all the part sea, in order to convince one's self that its water is salt. But it is as if there were a statue of clay with a coloured whole surface, to make the clay accounted gold: whoever will take to be corany little portion of it, and lay it open, and shew it to be clay, will rid the enquirers after truth of the false notion: so we too, analysing no small part, but those heads which are the very principal matters of their rule, have exhibited to all but those who wish to be led knowingly into error, what guilt and fraud and insidiousness and fatal tendency belongs to the school of the Valentinians, and of the rest of the Heretics, as many as deal amiss with the Demiurge, i. e,, the Framer and Maker of this universe, Who is in fact the only God:-we have shewn how their way is to be refuted. ons blas Holy For who that hath understanding, and that touches the § 9. truth ever so little, will endure them saying, that there is They another Father above God the Framer of the world: and pheme against that there is both another Only Begotten, and another the whole Word of God, whom also they affirm to have been pro- Trinity duced in inferiority; and another Christ, who they say was made, with the Holy Ghost, later than the other ons; and another Saviour who is not even of the Father of all, but is contributed to and put together by those ons who were made in inferiority, and was produced by a kind of fatality, because of their low estate; so that had the not been in ignorance and inferiority, by their account neither would Christ have emanated, nor the Holy Ghost, nor the Power of Order, nor the Saviour, nor the Angels, nor their Mother, nor her seed, nor the rest of the framing of the world, but all had been deserted and destitute of so many blessings. Not only therefore do they deal irreligi ously with the Creator, calling Him the offspring of decay, but also with Christ and with the Holy Ghost, saying that Decay caused them to be produced; and that the Saviour as well came after decay. Yea, who can bear the rest of their futile talk, which they cunningly endeavour to adapt 152 Eon's passion, Judas' crime, not parallel. Book 2. to the Parables, whereby they have perverted both themselves and such as believe them into very great impiety? CHAP. XX. $1. They Christ's acts Moreover, that they bring into their device the parables and acts of the Lord improperly and incongruously, we proceed to shew. Thus, they try to indicate the affecmisapply tion, which they say befell the twelfth on, by the fact words and that the Saviour's Passion was brought about by the twelfth Apostle, and in the twelfth month: for they say He preached but for one year from His Baptism. Yea, and they say it was evidently signified in the woman with an issue of blood: since the woman suffered twelve years, and touching the hem of our Saviour's garment, obtained health by that virtue which went out of the Saviour, and which they say hath the first place. For the virtue which suffered, in that it was drawn out and flowing away into immensity, so as to be in danger of dissolution in its whole. being, was staid, and ceased from its suffering, when it had touched the first quaternion [of Æons] which is signified by "the Hem of His Garment." $ 2. Their Now as to this their assertion, that the passion of the twelfth on is indicated by Judas; how can Judas be adapted to this comparison seeing he was cast out of the twelfth holds not, station and not restored to his own place? For the Eon, fantasy about Judas whereof they say Judas is the type, was restored, or recalled, after its Conception had been parted off from; it but Judas was deposed and cast out, and Matthias ordained in Ps. cix. 8. his place, as it is written, and his Bishoprick let another take. They ought therefore to say, that the twelfth Æon was cast out of the Pleroma, and another produced or emitted in his place; if he is at all signified by Judas. And again, this same on, they say, suffered, but Judas they say is the traitor. Now it was CHRIST Who by suffering came to His Passion, not Judas; as themselves confess. How could Judas then, the betrayer of Him Who had to suffer for our salvation, be the type and image of the on who suffered? $ 3. their Aon's But neither is the passion of Christ like the passion of their on, nor wrought under like circumstances. For the Eon's passion, its peril, CHRIST's Passion, our Life. 153 but contra our Saving passion which the Eon suffered was one of dissolution and passion destruction, so that the sufferer was in danger even of not like being wasted away. But our Lord Christ's Passion which wholly in He suffered was mighty and unyielding 1; far from any ha- diction to zard of corruption on His part, He did on the contrary, Lord's when man was corrupt, confirm him by His own strength, Passion and recall him to incorruption. And the Eon's passion took place by his seeking himself after the Father, and not being able to find Him: but the Lord suffered that He might lead those who wandered from the Father unto Knowledge and nearness to Him. And whereas to him the search after the Father's greatness proved a passion that caused ruin, to us the Lord by His Passion, bestowing the knowledge of the Father, gave salvation. And while the fruit of his passion was as they say female,-weak, and infirm, and shapeless, and ineffective,-This Man's Passion bare to us the fruit of courage and virtue. For the Lord by His Passion ascending up on high, led captivity captive, Ps. lxviii. gave gifts unto men, and granted to such as believe in iv. 8. Him to tread on serpents and scorpions, and on all the S Luke power of the enemy; i. e., of the Prince of the Apostasy. And the Lord indeed by His Passion destroyed death: yea, He did away with error, and drave out corruption, and destroyed ignorance; but life He made manifest, and demonstrated truth, and bestowed incorruption. But their Æon after he had suffered, introduced 5 ignorance, brought forth a shapeless substance, from which were produced all xiv. 6. material works, according to them: death, corruption, error, and the like of these. 18; Eph. x. 19. it: ef. c. 5 subs'i Other in afore Judas therefore, the twelfth disciple, was no type of an § 4. on who suffered; nor yet was the suffering of our Lord failures such for this has been proved throughout incongruous and said faninconsistent with itself, not only in the aforesaid particulars, tasy but also in the very number: Since all allow that the traitor Judas was the twelfth, twelve Apostles being named in the Gospel but this on is not the twelfth but the thirti "cederet." Mr Harvey edits from the Clermont Ms "accederet," saying that it indicates "accideret." The Translation would then be and no chance passion, but 154 Another and numerical incorrespondence. Book 2. eth, for not twelve ons only, as by this account, were produced by the will of the Father, nor did he emanate the twelfth in order, since they account him to have emanated in the thirtieth place. How then can Judas, being twelfth in order, be type and image of the Eon who is in the thirtieth place? § 5. xxvi. 24. If again they say that Judas perishing was a type of the Eon's Conception, neither in this way will the Type resemble the Truth to which it appertains. For the Conception, they say, having been severed from the Eon, was afterwards itself put in form by Christ, and then made wise by the Saviour, and having framed all things without the Pleroma after the pattern of those which are within, was finally received back into the Pleroma, and after the manner of the other pairs united to that Saviour, who was compounded of them all. Whereas Judas, once expelled, never returns into the number of the Disciples, else would not any other be reckoned in his place. And the Lord alS. Matt. so said of him, Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man shall be betrayed; and, Good were it for that man if he had not S. John been born; and He called him, The son of perdition. But if they say, Judas is not a type of the Conception separated from the on, but of the affection connected therewith; neither so can the number twelve be a type of things which in number are three. For in the one case Judas was cast out and Matthias ordained in his place; but in the other case they say the Eon was in danger of dissolution and of perishing, and its Conception, and the aforesaid affection;-for they separate the Conception too, as something entirely distinct from the aforesaid affection; and they make it out that while the Eon is restored, the Conception acquires form, but the Affection, severed from these, becomes Matter. These then being three, the Eon, I mean, the Conception, and the Affection, Judas and Matthias, being but two, cannot be the Type of them. xvii. 12. CHAP. § 1. If the 12 But if they say that the twelve Apostles are the type of that emanation only, of twelve Eons, which proceeded from the Man and the Church; let them for a type of the other Ten Eons, 70 disciples, equally without correspondence. 155 indicate there needs thing sig x. 1. ten Æons, who, as they say, were produced by the Word Apostles and the Life, exhibit to us some other Apostles, to the the 12 number of ten. For it were unreasonable that while those ons, Eons which are younger, and so far inferior, are indicated must by the Saviour in His Election of the Apostles, those who be someare elder and therefore better, should want the like previ- nified by ous indication of themselves: whereas the Saviour (if He the 70 at all chose the Apostles with the view of indicating by them the Eons which are in the Pleroma) might choose some other ten also for Apostles, and before them again eight others, by way of indicating that principal and first Ogdoad, by the number of His Apostles, thus made typical x x x x x. For after the twelve Apostles our Lord, we find, sent seventy others before Himself: but S. Luke seventy cannot be the type either of eight, or of ten, or of thirty. What then is the reason, that while the inferior Eons, as I said before, are indicated by the Apostles, the better sort, out of whom these were themselves made, have nothing to prefigure them? Yea, and if the twelve Apostles were therefore elected, that by them the number of the twelve Æons might be signified; the seventy also ought to have been elected for a figure of some seventy Eons: let them accordingly say that the ons have arrived at the number not of thirty but of eighty two. For He Who makes His Election of Apostles after the pattern of the Æons in the Pleroma, would never do so in the case of some but not of others, but through the whole company of Apostles would have endeavoured to keep the image and exhibit the type of the Eons who are in the Pleroma. Their took out But neither must we be silent concerning Paul, but§.2. must get them to tell us, of which of the Eons that Apos- blastle was set forth to us for a type: except you will phemy of say, It our SAVwas the Saviour they talk of, as a compounded Being, who 1OUR they is made up of a gathering from all, whom also they denomi- of heanate All, because he is made up of all. Of whom Hesiod poets also, the Poet, hath given a brilliant description, naming the proposed emendation does not go far to explain them. The words "possit ostendere neque secunda decade are here left untranslated. They are evidently corrupt, and then |