[Footnote 100: οἱ αὐτοὶ φύσεως. A similar phrase has just occurred
under the same sign: a proof of the utter corruption of the text.]
[Footnote 101: ὀρχησταί in codex. Probably a mistake for εἰς κοινωνίαν
εὔχρηστοι, “useful to the community.”]
[Footnote 102: δι’ ἐπινοίας; probably a sarcasm.]
[Footnote 103: It is hardly necessary to point out the futility of this
astrology, its base being the theory that the earth is the centre of
the universe. Nearly all the characteristics given above have, however,
less to do with the stars than with those supposed to distinguish the
different animals named. This is really sympathetic magic, or what was
later called “the signatures of things.”]
[Footnote 104: A lacuna in the text here extending to the opening words
of the next chapter.]
[Footnote 105: Richard Ganschinietz, in a study on _Hippolytus’ Capitel
gegen die Magier_ appearing in Gebhardt’s and Harnack’s _Texte und
Untersuchungen_, dritte Reihe Bd. 9, Leipzig, 1913, says it is not
doubtful that Hippolytus took this chapter from Celsus’ book κατὰ
μάγων, which he discovers in Origen’s work against the last-named
author. He assumes that Lucian of Samosata in his Ἀλέξανδρος ἢ
Ψευδόμαντις borrowed from the same source.]
[Footnote 106: τῶν δαιμόνων, _a demonibus_, Cr. But the word δαίμων is
hardly ever used in classic or N.T. Greek for a devil or evil spirit,
generally called δαιμόνιον. Δαίμων here and elsewhere in this chapter
plainly means a god of lesser rank or spirit. Cf. Plutarch _de Is. et
Os._, cc. 25-30.]
[Footnote 107: τῷ παιδὶ, the magician’s assistant necessary in all
operations requiring confederacy or hypnotism.]
[Footnote 108: For the composition of this see Plutarch, _op. cit._, c.
81.]
[Footnote 109: ὁ μυχός. Often used for the women’s chamber or
gynaeceum.]
[Footnote 110: Clearly the Egyptian sun-god Ra or Rê, the Phi in front
being the Coptic definite article. It is a curious instance of the
undying nature of any superstition that in the magical ceremonies of
the extant Parisian sect of Vintrasists, Ammon-Ra, the Theban form of
this god, is invoked apparently with some idea that he is a devil. See
Jules Bois’ _Le Satanisme et la Magie_, Paris, 1895.]
[Footnote 111: χαλκάνθον, sulphate of iron, which, mixed with tincture
or decoction of nut-galls, makes writing ink. Our own word copperas is
an exact translation.]
[Footnote 112: φιάλη. A broad flat pan used for sacrificial purposes.]
[Footnote 113: There is some muddle here, probably due to Hippolytus
not having any practical acquaintance with the tricks described. The
smoke of nut-galls would hardly make the writing visible. On the other
hand, letters written in milk will turn brown if exposed to the fire
without the application of any ash.]
[Footnote 114: A sauce made of brine and small fish.]
[Footnote 115: See the roughly-drawn vignettes usual in magic papyri,
_e. g._ Parthey, _Zwei griechische Zauberpapyri_, Berlin, 1866, p. 155;
Karl Wessely, _Griechische Zauberpapyri von Paris und London_, Vienna,
1888, p. 118.]
[Footnote 116: τὰς φρένας. One of Hippolytus’ puns.]
[Footnote 117: Hebrew was used in these ceremonies, because they were
largely in the hands of the Jews. See _Forerunners and Rivals of
Christianity_, II, pp. 33, 34, for references.]
[Footnote 118: ἠχεῖ. Particularly appropriate to the striking of a
metal disc.]
[Footnote 119: The book of course was a long roll of parchment, the
inner coils of which could be drawn out as described.]
[Footnote 120: ὀρυκτῶν ἁλῶν. Cruice translates fossil salts. Does he
mean rock-salt?]
[Footnote 121: τὸ ἰνδικὸν μέλαν. Either indigo dye or pepper. Cayenne
pepper put in the flame might have a startling effect on the audience.]
[Footnote 122: Where?]
[Footnote 123: Said to be an astringent earth made from rock-alum, and
containing both alum and vitriol. Known to Hippocrates.]
[Footnote 124: Red lead or vermilion? The idea seems to be to frighten
the dupe by the supposed prodigy of a hen laying eggs which have red or
black inside them instead of white.]
[Footnote 125: Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, VIII, c. 75, says the sheep is
compelled when it feeds to turn away from the sun by reason of the
weakness of its head. This is probably the story which Hippolytus or
the author has exaggerated. Something is omitted from the text.]
[Footnote 126: Seal or porpoise oil?]
[Footnote 127: Hymns like these are to be found in the two collections
of magic papyri quoted in n. on p. 93 _supra_.]
[Footnote 128: He tells us how this trick is performed on p. 100
_infra_. Lecanomancy or divination by the bowl was generally performed
by means of a hypnotized boy, as described in Lane’s _Modern
Egyptians_. This, however, is a more elaborate process dependent on
fraud.]
[Footnote 129: Reading νάτρον for νίτρον. It was common in Egypt, and
saltpetre would not have the same effect, which seems to depend on the
expulsion of carbonic acid.]
[Footnote 130: μυρσίνη. Cruice suggests μάλφη, a mixture of wax and
pitch, which hardly seems indicated. Storax is the ointment recommended
by eighteenth-century conjurers. Water is all that is needful.]
[Footnote 131: ἰχθυοκόλλα. Presumably fish-glue. Macmahon suggests
isinglass. The salamander, the use of which is to be sought in
sympathetic magic, was no doubt calcined and used in powder.
σκολοπένδριον, “millipede” and σκολόπενδρον, “hart’s tongue fern” are
the alternative readings suggested. Fern-oil is said to be good for
burns.]
[Footnote 132: Probably chalk or gypsum.]
[Footnote 133: αὐτορρύτων κηκίδων τε κενῶν. Κήκις here evidently means
any sort of nut-shell. But how can it be “self-flowing”? Miller’s
suggested φορυτὸν makes no better sense.]
[Footnote 134: The lion-headed figure of the Mithraic worship is shown
thus setting light to an altar in Cumont’s _Textes et Monuments de
Mithra_, II, p. 196, fig. 22. A similar figure with an opening at the
back of the head to admit the “wind-pipe” described in the text shows
how this was effected. See the same author’s _Les Mystères de Mithra_,
Brussels, 1913, p. 235, figs. 26, 27.]
[Footnote 135: The solution of alum would be effective without any
other ingredients.]
[Footnote 136: That is, not by guesswork. Another pun.]
[Footnote 137: The letter was of course in the form of a writing-tablet
bound about with silk or cord, to which the seal was attached.]
[Footnote 138: This would make something like plaster of Paris.]
[Footnote 139: This book or the former one. Lucian describes the same
process in his _Alexander_, which he dedicates to Celsus; _v._ n. on p.
92 _supra_.]
[Footnote 140: ἀφορμὰς λαβών, “taking them as starting-points.”]
[Footnote 141: Cruice suggests that this sentence has either got out of
place or is an addition by an annotator. Probably an afterthought of
Hippolytus’.]
[Footnote 142: See n. on p. 97 _supra_.]
[Footnote 143: κύανος. A dark-blue substance which some think steel,
others lapis lazuli.]
[Footnote 144: συμπαῖκται, “playfellows.” Here, as elsewhere in the
text, accomplices or confederates.]
[Footnote 145: Several words missing here, perhaps by intention. It
would be interesting to know if the “drug” was any preparation of
phosphorus.]
[Footnote 146: Should be Baubo, a synonym of Hecate in the hymn to that
goddess published by Miller, _Mélanges de Litt. Grecque_, Paris, 1868,
pp. 442 ff.]
[Footnote 147: Most of the epithets and names here used are to be
found in the hymn quoted in the last note. The goddess is there
identified not only with Artemis and Persephone, but with the Sumerian
Eris-ki-gal, lady of hell.]
[Footnote 148: A sort of magic lantern? κάτοπτρον, which I have
translated mirror, _might_ be a lens. One is said to have been found in
Assyria.]
[Footnote 149: πόρρωθεν. Better, perhaps, πόρροτεθεν.]
[Footnote 150: Full moon, or half, or quarter, as the case may be.]
[Footnote 151: Schneidewin seems to be right in suggesting a lacuna
here.]
[Footnote 152: ἐν ὑαλώδεσι τύποις. Schneidewin suggests τόποις
unreasonably. Many alabaster jars are nearly transparent.]
[Footnote 153: Cf. Aristotle, _De Hist. Animal._, V, 10, 2. Said to be
_Coryphæna hippurus_.]
[Footnote 154: The hiatus leaves us in doubt how this operated. Perhaps
it liberated free ammonia.]
[Footnote 155: Reading ἐπίπλοον βοείου instead of, with Cruice,
ἐπίπλεον βώλου, “filled with clay.”]
[Footnote 156: ἀφανὲς, “unapparent.”]
[Footnote 157: ἀπηνέχθημεν. An admission that this chapter was an
afterthought.]
[Footnote 158: ὡς εἰκάσαι, ἐστι, _ut patet_, Cr.]
[Footnote 159: θεολόγοι. It does not mean “theologians” in our sense,
but narrator of stories about the gods. Orpheus is always considered a
θεολόγος.]
[Footnote 160: ποδαπός. Not, as Cruice translates, _quale_, which would
be better expressed by the ποίον of Aristotle.]
[Footnote 161: τὸ σύμπαν αὐτὸ.]
[Footnote 162: It is fairly certain that Hippolytus in this
“Recapitulation” must here be summarizing the missing Books II and III.
He has said nothing in any part of the work that has come down to us
about the Persian theology, and in Book I he calls Zaratas or Zoroaster
a Chaldæan and not a Persian.]
[Footnote 163: ψήφοις ὑπέβαλον καὶ are supplied by Schneidewin in the
place of three words rubbed out.]
[Footnote 164: Reading with Schneidewin μοιρῶν for μυρῶν and ἐπιπνοίας
for ἐπίνοιας.]
[Footnote 165: By indivisible comparison (σύγκρισις) he seems to imply
that these numbers cannot be divided except by 1. Hence Cruice would
omit 9 as being divisible by 3. Perhaps he means “like indivisibility.”]
[Footnote 166: Cruice suggests that this was an astronomical instrument
and quotes Cl. Ptolemy, _Harmon._, I, 2, in support.]
[Footnote 167: Why should the cosmos be masculo-feminine? The
Valentinians said the same thing about their Sophia, who was, as I have
said elsewhere (_Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, Oct. 1917), a
personification of the Earth. The idea seems to go back to Sumerian
times. Cf. _Forerunners_, II, 45, n. 1, and Mr. S. Langdon, _Tammuz and
Ishtar_, Oxford, 1914, pp. 7, 43 and 115.]
[Footnote 168: The worshippers of the Greek Isis declared Isis to be
the earth and Osiris water. See _Forerunners_, I, 73, for references.
If Hippolytus is here recapitulating Books II and III, it is probable
that the lacuna was occupied with some reference to the Alexandrian
deities and their connection with the arithmetical speculations of the
Neo-Pythagoreans. Could this be substantiated, we should not need to
look further for the origin of the Simonian and Valentinian heresies.]
[Footnote 169: ψηφιζόμενα κὰι ἀναλυόμενα, _supputata et diversa_, Cr.
The process seems to be that called earlier (p. 85 _supra_) the rule of
9.]
[Footnote 170: 361 ÷ 9 = 40 + 1; 605 ÷ 9 = 67 + 2.]
[Footnote 171: ἀπερίζυγον, lit., “unyoked.”]
[Footnote 172: εἰς ἐννάδα here appears in the text apparently as an
alternative reading. Cruice suggests “with an ennead deducted.”]
[Footnote 173: Meaning that some reckon the numerical value of all the
letters in a name, others that of the vowels only.]
[Footnote 174: What follows has nothing to do with divination, but
treats of the celestial map as a symbolical representation of the
Christian scheme of salvation. Hippolytus condemns the notion as a
“heresy,” but if so, its place ought to be in Book V. It is doubtful
from what author or teacher he derived his account of it; but all the
quotations from Aratus’ _Phænomena_ which he gives are to be found in
Cicero, _De Natura Deorum_, 41, where they make, as they do not here, a
connected story.]
[Footnote 175: One of the passages favouring the conjecture that the
book was originally in the form of lectures.]
[Footnote 176: οἱ ἐντυγχάνοντες, _legentibus_, Cr. It may just as
easily mean “those who come across this.”]
[Footnote 177: “Catasterisms” was the technical term for these
transfers, of which the _Coma Berenices_ is the best-known example. Cf.
Bouché-Leclercq, _op. cit._, p. 23.]
[Footnote 178: The long-eared owl (_strix otus_). According to Ælian it
had a reputation for stupidity, and was therefore a type of the easy
dupe, Athenæus, _Deipnosophistæ_, IX, 44, 45, tells a similar story to
that in the text about the bustard.]
[Footnote 179: Reading μετανάσσεται for μετανίσσεται or μετανείσεται.]
[Footnote 180: στρεπτούς, _volventes_, Cr. An attempt to pun on πόλος,
the Pole.]
[Footnote 181: Job i. 7. The Book of Job according to some writers
comes from an Essene school, which may give us some clue to the origin
of these ideas. The Enochian literature to which the same tendency
is assigned is full of speculations about the heavenly bodies. See
_Forerunners_, I, p. 159, for references.]
[Footnote 182: ὁ ἐν γόνασιν. Aratus calls this constellation ὁ ἐν
γόνασι καθήμενος, Cicero _Engonasis_, Ovid _Genunixus_, Vitruvius,
Manilius and J. Firmicus Maternus, _Ingeniculus_.]
[Footnote 183: A perversion of the “it shall bruise thy head and thou
shall bruise his heel,” of Genesis iii. 15.]
[Footnote 184: From his attitude the Kneeler resembles the figure
of Atlas supporting the world, who as Omophorus plays a great part
in Manichæan mythology. Cumont derives this from a Babylonian
original, for which and his connection with Mithraic cosmogony see his
_Recherches sur le Manichéisme_, Brussels, 1908, I, p. 70, figs. 1 and
2. The constellation is now known as Hercules.]
[Footnote 185: Hippolytus here evidently quotes not from Aratus, but
from some unnamed Gnostic or heretic writer, whom Cruice thinks must
have been a Jew. Yet he was plainly a Christian, as appears from his
remarks about the “Second Creation.” An Ebionite writer might have
preserved many Essene superstitions.]
[Footnote 186: Cruice, following Roeper, says these words have slipped
in from an earlier page.]
[Footnote 187: ὀφιοῦχος. The “Ophiuchus huge” of Milton or Anguitenens.]
[Footnote 188: Ἑλίκη. So Aratus and Apollonius Rhodius. Said to be so
called from its perpetually revolving. Cruice remarks on this sentence
that it does not seem to have been written by a Greek, and quotes
Epiphanius as to the addiction of the Pharisees to astrology. But see
last note but one.]
[Footnote 189: ἑλίκη. A pun quite in Hippolytus’ manner.]
[Footnote 190: πρὸς ἣν ... ναυτίλλονται. Cruice and Macmahon alike
translate this “towards which,” but Aratus clearly means “steer by”
both here and earlier.]
[Footnote 191: Herodotus I, 1. He does not say, however, that the
Greeks were Phœnicians.]
[Footnote 192: Rather the conceiver, from κύω, to conceive. γεννάω is
used of the mother by Aristotle, _De Gen. Animal._, 3, 5, 6.]
[Footnote 193: λογικῆς.]
[Footnote 194: Reading Ιάσαδος for Cruice’s Ἰασίδαο. The text is said
to have εἰς ἀΐδαο.]
[Footnote 195: γράμματα, elementa, Cr. But I think the allusion is to
the story they contain for those who can read them.]
[Footnote 196: The Swan.]
[Footnote 197: τὰς ἰδέας.]
[Footnote 198: If Hippolytus’ words are here correctly transcribed, the
“heretic” quoted seems to have two inconsistent ideas about the stars.
One is that the constellations are types or allegories of what takes
place in man’s soul; the other, that they are the patterns after which
the creatures of this world were made. This last is Mithraic rather
than Christian.]
[Footnote 199: τῆς τούτων ὑπολήψεως, _ab horum cogitationibus_, Cr.]
[Footnote 200: ἀγαπητοί. The word generally used in a _sermon_.]
[Footnote 201: This also reads like a peroration.]
[Footnote 202: In this chapter Hippolytus for the first time sets
himself seriously to prove the thesis which he has before asserted, _i.
e._, that all the Gnostic systems are derived from the teachings of the
Greek philosophers. His mode of doing so is to compare the elaborate
systems of Aeons or emanations of deity imagined by heresiarchs
like Simon Magus and Valentinus to the views attributed by him to
Pythagoras which make all nature to spring from one indivisible point.
Whether Pythagoras ever held such views may be doubted and we have no
means of checking Hippolytus’ always loose statements on this point;
but something like them appears in the _Theaetetus_ of Plato where
arithmetic and geometry seem to be connected by talk about oblong as
well as square numbers and the construction of solids from them. If
we imagine with the Greeks (see n. on p. 37 _supra_) that numbers are
not abstract things, but actual portions of space, there is indeed a
strong likeness between the ideas of the later Platonists as to the
construction of the world by means of numbers and those attributed to
the Gnostic teachers as to its emanation from God. Whether these last
really held the views thus attributed to them is another matter. Cf.
_Forerunners_, II, pp. 99, 100.]
[Footnote 203: ἀπὸ τοῦ σημείου seems to be repeated needlessly.]
[Footnote 204: ῥυὲν, “flowing out.”]
[Footnote 205: πέρος ἔχουσα σημεῖον. Surely it has two limits--a point
at each end.]
[Footnote 206: σῶμα. In the next sentence he uses the proper word
στερεόν.]
[Footnote 207: This is, I suppose, quoted from the Ἀποφάσις μεγαλή
attributed to Simon, as he speaks afterwards (II, p. 9 _infra_) of the
small becoming great, “as it is written in the _Apophasis_, if it ...
come into being from the indivisible point. But the great will be in
the boundless æon,” etc.]
[Footnote 208: What follows from this point down to the end of the
paragraph is an almost verbatim transcript of the passage in Book I
(pp. 37 ff. _supra_), where it is given as the teaching of Pythagoras.
The only substantial differences are: that hypostasis is written for
hypothesis in the second sentence of the passage; the Tetractys is no
longer said to be the “source” of eternal nature; and the 11, 12, etc.,
are now said to take, and not “share” their beginning from the 10.]
[Footnote 209: ὑπόθεσιν ἑαυτοῖς ἐντεῦθεν σχεδιάσαντες, _suis dogmatibus
fundamentum posuerunt_, Cr.]
[Footnote 210: τὸ πνεῦμα. Cruice translates this by _spiritum_, and is
followed by Macmahon. I think, however, he means the breath, it being
the idea of the ancients that the arteries were air-vessels.]
[Footnote 211: παρεγκεφαλίς.]
[Footnote 212: κωνάριον.]
[Footnote 213: νωτιαῖον μοελόν.]
[Footnote 214: It is at any rate plain from this that the missing Books
II and III at one time existed.]
[Footnote 215: These words appear in the MS. at the foot of this Book.]
BOOK V
THE OPHITE HERESIES
[Sidenote: p. 137.] 1. These are the contents of the 5th (book) of the
Refutation of all Heresies.
2. What the Naassenes say who call themselves Gnostics, and that they
profess those opinions which the philosophers of the Greeks and the
transmitters of the Mysteries first laid down, starting wherefrom they
have constructed heresies.
3. And what things the Peratæ imagine, and that their doctrine is not
framed from the Holy Scriptures but from the astrological (art).
4. What is the system according to the Sithians, and that they have
patched together their doctrine by plagiarizing from those wise men
according to the Greeks, (to wit) Musæus and Linus and Orpheus.
5. What Justinus imagined and that his doctrine is not framed from
the Holy Scriptures, but from the marvellous tales of Herodotus the
historiographer.
1. _Naassenes._[1]
[Sidenote: p. 138.] 6. I consider that the tenets concerning the Divine
and the fashioning of the cosmos (held by) all those who are deemed
philosophers by Greeks and Barbarians have been very painfully set
forth in the four books before this. Whose curious arts I have not
neglected, so that I have undertaken for the readers no chance labour,
exhorting many to love of learning and certainty of knowledge about the
truth. Now therefore there remains to hasten on to the refutation of
the heresies, with which intent[2] also we have set forth the things
aforesaid. From which philosophers the heresiarchs have taken hints in
common[3] and patching like cobblers the mistakes of the ancients on to
their own thoughts, have offered them as new to those they can deceive,
as we shall prove in (the books) which follow. For the rest, it is time
to approach the subjects laid down before, but to begin with those who
have dared to sing the praises of the Serpent, who is in fact the cause
of the error, through certain systems invented by his action. Therefore
[Sidenote: p. 139.] the priests and chiefs of the doctrine were the
first who were called Naassenes, being thus named in the Hebrew tongue:
for the Serpent is called Naas.[4] Afterwards they called themselves
Gnostics alleging that they alone knew the depths.[5] Separating
themselves from which persons, many men have made the heresy, which is
really one, a much divided affair, describing the same things according
to varying opinions, as this discourse will argue as it proceeds.
These men worship as the beginning of all things, according to
their own statement, a Man and a Son of Man. But this Man is
masculo-feminine[6] and is called by them Adamas;[7] and hymns to him
are many and various. And [Sidenote: p. 140.] the hymns, to cut it
short, are repeated by them somehow like this:--
“From thee a father, and through thee a mother, the two deathless
names, parents of Aeons, O thou citizen of heaven, Man of great
name!”[8]
But they divide him like Geryon into three parts. For there is of
him, they say, the intellectual (part), the psychic and the earthly;
and they consider that the knowledge of him is the beginning of the
capacity to know God, speaking thus: “The beginning of perfection
is the knowledge of man, but the knowledge of God is completed
perfection.” But all these things, he says, the intellectual, and the
psychic and the earthly, proceeded and came down together into one
man, Jesus who was born of Mary;[9] and there spoke together, he says,
in the same way, these three men each of them from his own substance
to his own. For there are three kinds of universals[10] according to
them (to wit) the angelic,[11] the psychic and the earthly; and three
churches, the angelic, the psychic and the earthly; but their names
are: Chosen, Called, Captive.[12]
[Sidenote: p. 141.] 7. These are the heads of the very many discourses
which they say James the brother of the Lord handed down to
Mariamne.[13] So then, that the impious may no longer speak falsely
either of Mariamne, or of James, or of his Saviour, we will come to
the Mysteries, whence comes their fable, both the Barbarian and the
Greek, and we shall see how these men collecting together the hidden
and ineffable mysteries of the nations[14] and speaking falsely of
Christ, lead astray those who have not seen the Gentiles’ secret rites.
For since the Man Adamas is their foundation, and they say there
has been written of him “Who shall declare his [Sidenote: p. 142.]
generation?”[15] learn ye how, taking from the nations in turn the
undiscoverable and distinguished[16] generation of the Man, they apply
this to Christ.
“For earth, say the Greeks, was the first to give forth man, thus
bearing a goodly gift. For she wished to be the mother not of plants
without feeling and wild beasts without sense, but of a gentle and
God-loving animal. But hard it is, he says, to discover whether
Alalcomeneus of the Boeotians came forth upon the [Sidenote: p. 143.]
Cephisian shore as the first of men, or whether (the first men) were
the Idæan Curetes, a divine race, or the Phrygian Corybantes whom the
Sun saw first shooting up like trees, or whether Arcadia brought forth
Pelasgus earlier than the Moon, or Eleusis Diaulus dweller in the
Rarian field, or Lemnos gave birth to Cabirus, fair child of ineffable
orgies, or Pallene to Alcyon, eldest of the Giants. But the Libyans
say Iarbas the first-born crept forth from the parched field to pluck
Zeus’ sweet acorn. So also, he says that the Nile of the Egyptians,
making fat the mud which unto this day begets life, gave forth living
bodies made flesh with moist heat.”[17]
But the Assyrians say that fish-eating[18] Oannes (the first man) was
born among them and the Chaldæans (say the same thing about) Adam; and
they assert that he was the man whom the earth brought forth alone, and
that he lay breathless, motionless (and) unmoved like unto a statue
being the image of him on high who is praised in song as the man
Adamas; but that he was produced by many [Sidenote: p. 144.] powers
about whom in turn there is much talk.[19]
In order then that the Great Man[20] on high, from whom, as they say,
“every fatherhood[21] named on earth and in the heavens” is framed,
might be completely held fast, there was given to him also a soul, so
that through the soul he might suffer, and that the enslaved “image
of the great and most beautiful and Perfect Man”--for thus they call
him--might be punished.[22] Wherefore again they ask what is the soul
and of what kind is its nature that coming to the man and moving[23]
him it should enslave and punish the image of the Perfect Man. But they
ask this, not from the Scriptures, but from the mystic rites. And they
say that the soul is very hard to find and to comprehend, since it does
not stay in the same shape or form, nor is it always in one and the
same state, so that one might describe it by a type or comprehend it in
substance.[24] But these various changes of the soul they hold to be
set down in the Gospel inscribed to the Egyptians.
They doubt then, as do all other men of the nations, whether the
soul is from the pre-existent, or from the self-begotten, [Sidenote:
p. 145.] or from the poured-forth Chaos.[25] And first they betake
themselves to the mysteries of the Assyrians[26] to understand the
triple division of the Man; for the Assyrians were the first to think
the soul tripartite and yet one. For every nature, they say, longs
for the soul, but each in a different way. For soul is the cause of
all things that are, and all things which are nourished and increase,
he says, require soul. For nothing like nurture or increase, he says,
can occur unless soul be present. And even the stones, he says, are
animated,[27] for they have the power of increase, and no increase
can come without nourishment. For by addition increase the things
which increase and the addition is the nourishment of that which is
nourished.[28] Therefore every nature he says, of things in heaven, and
on earth, and below the earth, longs for a soul. But the Assyrians call
such a thing[29] Adonis or Endymion or (Attis); and when it is invoked
as Adonis Aphrodite loves and longs after the soul of such name. And
Aphrodite is generation[30] according to them. But when Persephone
or Core loves Adonis[31] there is a certain mortal soul separated
from Aphrodite [Sidenote: p. 146.] (that is from generation).[32]
And if Selene should come to desire of Endymion[33] and to love of
his beauty, the nature of the sublime ones, he says, also requires
soul. But if, he says, the Mother of the Gods castrate Attis,[34] and
she holds this loved one, the blessed nature of the hypercosmic and
eternal ones on high recalls to her, he says, the masculine power of
the soul.[35] For, says he, the Man is masculo-feminine. According to
this argument of theirs, then, the so-called[36] intercourse of woman
with man is by (the teaching of) their school shown to be an utterly
wicked and defiling thing. For Attis is castrated, he says, that is, he
has changed over from the earthly parts of the lower creation to the
eternal substance on high, where, he says, there is neither male nor
female,[37] but a new creature,[38] a new Man, who is masculo-feminine.
What they mean by “on high” I will show in its appropriate place when
I come to it. But they say it bears witness to what they say that
Rhea is not simply one (goddess) but, so to speak, the [Sidenote: p.
147.] whole creature.[39] And this they say is made quite clear by the
saying:--“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the
world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made by
Him, in truth, His eternal power and godhead, so that they are without
excuse. Since when they knew Him as God, they glorified Him not as
God, neither were thankful, but foolishness deceived their hearts. For
thinking themselves wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of
the incorruptible God into the likenesses of an image of corruptible
man and of birds and of fourfooted and creeping things. Wherefore God
gave them up to passions of dishonour. For even their women changed
their natural use to that which is against nature.”[40] And what the
natural use is according to them, we shall see later. “Likewise, also
the males leaving the natural use of the female burned in their lust
one toward another males among males working unseemliness.”[41] But
unseemliness is according to them the first and blessed and unformed
substance which is the cause of all the forms of [Sidenote: p. 148.]
things which are formed. “And receiving in themselves the recompense
of their error which is meet.”[42] For in these words, which Paul has
spoken, they say is comprised their whole secret and the ineffable
mystery of the blessed pleasure. For the promise of baptism[43] is not
anything else according to them than the leading to unfading pleasure
him who is baptized according to them in living water and anointed with
silent[44] ointment.
And they say that not only do the mysteries of the Assyrians bear
witness to their saying, but also those of the Phrygians concerning the
blessed nature, hitherto hidden and yet at the same time displayed, of
those who were and are and shall be, which, he says, is the kingdom of
the heavens sought for within man.[45] Concerning which nature they
have explicitly made tradition in the Gospel inscribed according to
Thomas,[46] saying thus: “Whoso seeks me shall find me in children from
seven years (upwards). For there in the fourteenth year I who am hidden
[Sidenote: p. 149.] am made manifest.” This, however, is the saying
not of Christ but of Hippocrates, who says: “At seven years old, a boy
is half a father.” Whence they who place the primordial nature of the
universals in the primordial seed having heard the Hippocratian (adage)
that a boy of seven years old is half a father, say that in fourteen
years according to Thomas it will be manifest. This is their ineffable
and mystical saying.[47]
They say then that the Egyptians, who are admitted to be the most
ancient of all men after the Phrygians and the first at once to impart
to all men the initiations and secret rites[48] of the gods, and to
have proclaimed forms and activities, have the holy and august and for
those who are not initiated unutterable mysteries of Isis. And these
are nothing else than the _pudendum_ of Osiris which was snatched away
and sought for by her of the seven stoles and black [Sidenote: p. 150.]
garments.[49] But they say Osiris is water. And the seven-stoled nature
which has about it and is equipped with seven ethereal stoles--for
thus they allegorically call the wandering stars--is like mutable
generation[50] and shows that the creation is transformed by the
Ineffable and Unportrayable[51] and Incomprehensible and Formless One.
And this is what is said in the Scripture: “The just shall fall seven
times and rise again.”[52] For these falls, he says, are the turnings
about of the stars when moved by him who moves all things. They say,
then, about the substance of the seed which is the cause of all things
that are, that it belongs to none of these but begets and creates all
things that are, speaking thus: “I become what I wish, and I am what I
am; wherefore I say that it is the immoveable that moves all things.
For it remains what it is, creating all things and nothing comes into
being from begotten things.”[53] He says that this alone is good and
that it is of this that the Saviour spoke when he said: “Why callest
thou me good? There is one good, my Father who is in the heavens, Who
makes the sun to rise upon the just and the unjust, and [Sidenote: p.
151.] rains upon the holy and the sinners.”[54] And who are the holy
upon whom He rains and who the sinful we shall see with other things
later on. And this is the great secret and the unknowable mystery
concealed and revealed by the Egyptians. For Osiris, he says, is in
the temple in front of Isis, whose _pudendum_ stands exposed looking
upwards from below, and wearing as a crown all its fruits of begotten
things.[55] And they say not only does such a thing stand in the most
holy temples, but is made known to all like a light not set under a
bushel but placed on a candlestick making [Sidenote: p. 152.] its
announcement on the housetops in all the streets and highways and near
all dwellings being set before them as some limit and term.[56] For
they call this the bringer of luck, not knowing what they say.
And this mystery the Greeks who have taken it over from the Egyptians
keep unto this day. For we see, he says, the (images) of Hermes in
such a form honoured among them. And they say that they especially
honour Cyllenius the Eloquent. For Hermes is the Word who, being the
interpreter and fashioner[57] of what has been, is, and will be, stands
honoured among them carved into some such form which is the _pudendum_
of a man straining from the things below to those on high. And that
this--that is, such a Hermes--is, he says, a leader of souls and a
sender forth of them, and a cause of souls, did not escape the poets of
the nations who speak thus:--
“Cyllenian Hermes called forth the souls
Of the suitors.”--
(Homer, _Odyssey_, XXIV, 1.)
[Sidenote: p. 153.] Not of the suitors of Penelope, he says, O unhappy
ones, but of those awakened from sleep and recalled to consciousness
“From such honour and from such enduring bliss.”--
(Empedocles, 355, Stürz.)
that is, from the blessed Man on high or from the arch-man Adamas, as
they think, they have been brought down here into the form of clay that
they may be made slaves to the fashioner of this creation, Jaldabaoth,
a fiery god, a fourth number.[58] For thus they call the demiurge and
father of the world of form.
“But he holds in his hands the rod
Fair and golden, wherewith he lulls to sleep the eyes of men,
Whomso he will, while others he awakens from sleep.”--
(_Odyssey_, XXIV, 3 ff.)
This, he says, is he who has authority over life and death of whom he
says it is written: “Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron.”[59]
But the poet wishing to adorn the incomprehensible [Sidenote: p.
154.] (part)[60] of the blessed nature of the Word, makes his rod
not iron but golden. And he charms to sleep the eyes of the dead, he
says, and again awakens those sleepers who are stirred out of sleep
and become suitors. Of these, he says, the Scripture spoke: “Awake
thou that sleepest, and arise and Christ shall shine upon thee.”[61]
This is the Christ, he says, who in all begotten things is the Son
of Man, impressed (with the image) by the Logos of whom no image can
be made.[62] This, he says, is the great and unspeakable mystery of
the Eleusinians “_Hye Cye_”[63] seeing that all things are set under
him, and this is the saying: “Their sound went forth into all the
earth,”[64] just as
“Hermes waved the rod and they followed gibbering.”--
(Homer, _Odyssey_, XXIV, 5-7.)
still meaning the souls as the poet shows, saying figuratively:--
“And even as bats flit gibbering in the secret recesses
Of a wondrous cave when one has fallen down out of the rock
From the cluster....”--
(_Ibid._, XXIV, 9 _seq._)
[Sidenote: p. 155.] Out of the rock, he says, is said of Adamas. This,
he says, is Adamas, “the corner-stone which has become the head of the
corner.”[65] For in the head is the impressed brain of the substance
from which every fatherhood is impressed.[66] “Which Adamas,” he says,
“I place at the foundation of Zion.”[67] Allegorically, he says, he
means the image of the Man. But that Adamas is placed within the
teeth, as Homer says, “the hedge of teeth,”[68] that is, the wall and
stockade within which is the inner man, who has fallen from Adamas the
arch-man[69] on high who is (the rock) “cut without cutting hands”[70]
and brought down into the image of oblivion,[71] the earthly and
clayey. And he says that the souls follow him, the Word, gibbering.
Even so the souls gibbered as they fared together,
But he went before,
that is, he led them,
“Gracious Hermes led them adown the dark ways.”--
(_Odyssey_, XXIV, 9 ff.)
[Sidenote: p. 156.] that is, he says, into eternal countries remote
from all evil. For whence, says he, did they come?
“By Ocean’s flood they came and the Leucadian cliff
And by the Sun’s gates and the land of dreams.”--
(_Odyssey_, _ubi cit._)
This he says is Ocean, “source of gods and source of men”[72] ever
ebbing and flowing now forth and now back. But when he says Ocean flows
forth there is birth of men, but when back to the wall and stockade
and the Leucadian rock there is birth of gods. This he says is that
which is written: “I have said ye are all gods and sons of the Highest;
if you hasten to flee from Egypt and win across the Red Sea into the
desert,” that is from the mixture below to the Jerusalem above who is
the Mother of (all) living. “But if ye return again to Egypt,” that is
to the mixture below, [Sidenote: p. 157.] “ye shall die as men.”[73]
For deathly, says he, is all birth below, but deathless that which is
born above; for it is born of water alone and the spirit, spiritual
not fleshly. This, he says, is that which is written: “That which
is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit
is spirit.”[74] This is, according to them, the spiritual birth.
This, he says, is the great Jordan which flowing forth prevented the
sons of Israel from coming out of the land of Egypt--or rather, from
the mixture below; for Egypt is the body according to them--until
Joshua[75] turned it and made it flow back towards its source.
8. Following up these and such-like (words) the most wonderful Gnostics
having invented a new art of grammar[76] imagine that their own prophet
Homer unspeakably[77] foreshowed[78] these things and they mock at
those who not being initiated in the Holy Scriptures are led together
into such designs. But they say: whoso says all things were framed from
one, errs; but whoso says from three speaks the truth and gives an
exposition of (the things of) the universe. For one, he says, is the
blessed nature of the Blessed Man above, Adamas, and one is the mortal
(nature), [Sidenote: p. 158.] below, and one is the kingless race
begotten on high, where, he says, is Mariam the sought-for one, and
Jothor the great wise one, and Sephora the seer,[79] and Moses whose
generation was not in Egypt--for there were children born to him in
Midian--and this, he says, was not forgotten by the poets:--
“In three lots were all things divided and each drew a domain of
his own.”--(_Iliad_, XV, 169.)
For sublime things, he says, must needs be spoken, but they are spoken
everywhere, lest “hearing they should not hear and seeing they should
see not.”[80] For if, he says, the sublime things were not spoken, the
cosmos could not have been framed. These are the three ponderous words:
Caulacau, Saulasau, Zeesar.[81] Caulacau the one on high, [Sidenote:
p. 159.] Adamas, Saulasau, the mortal nature below, Zeesar the Jordan
which flows back on its source. This is, he says, the masculo-feminine
Man who is in all things, whom the ignorant call the triple-bodied
Geryon--as if Geryon were “flowing from Earth”[82]--and the Greeks
usually “the heavenly horn of Mên”[83] because he has mingled and
compounded all things with all. “For all things, he says, were made
through him and apart from him not one thing was made. That which was
in him is life.”[84] This, he says is the life, the unspeakable family
of perfect men which was not known to the former generation. But the
“nothing” which came into being apart from him is the world of form;
for it came without him by the 3rd and 4th.[85] This, he says, is the
cup Condy in which the king drinking, divineth. This, he says, is that
which was hidden among the fair grains of Benjamin. And the Greeks also
say the same with raving lips:--
“Bring water, bring wine, O boy
Intoxicate me, plunge me into sleep.
The cup tells me
[Sidenote: p. 160.] What I must become.”[86]--
(_Anacreon_, XXVI, 25, 26.)
It was enough, he says, that only this should be known to men that
Anacreon’s cup spoke mutely an unspeakable mystery. For mute, he says,
was Anacreon’s cup which says Anacreon, tells him with mute speech what
he must become, that is spiritual not fleshly, if he hears the hidden
mystery in silence. And this is the water in those fair nuptials which
Jesus changed by making wine. This, he says, is the mighty and true
beginning of the signs which Jesus did in Cana in Galilee and made
known the kingdom of the heavens. This, he says, is the kingdom of the
heavens within us, as a treasure as the leaven hidden within three
measures of meal.[87]
[Sidenote: p. 161.] This is, he says, the great and unspeakable mystery
of the Samothracians which is allowed to be known to us alone who are
perfect. For the Samothracians explicitly hand down in the mysteries
celebrated by them that Adam is the Arch-man. And in the temple of
the Samothracians stand two statues of naked men having both hands
stretched forth to heaven and their _pudenda_ turned upwards like that
of Hermes on (Mt.) Cyllene. But the aforesaid statues are the images
of the Arch-man and of the re-born spiritual one in all things of one
substance[88] with that man. This, he says, is what was spoken by the
Saviour: “Unless ye drink my blood and eat my flesh, ye shall not
enter into the kingdom of the heavens; but even though, He says, ye
drink the cup which I drink when I go forth you will not be able to
enter there.”[89] For He knew, he says, from which nature each of His
disciples was, and that each of them was compelled to come to his own
special nature. For from the twelve tribes, he says, He chose twelve
[Sidenote: p. 162.] disciples,[90] and by them He spake to every tribe.
Whence, he says, all could not have heard the preachings of the twelve
disciples, nor, had they heard them could they have been received. For
the things which are not according to[91] nature are with them natural.
This, he says, the Thracians who dwell about Mt. Hæmus and like them
the Phrygians call Corybas,[92] because although he takes the beginning
of his descent from the head on high and from the Unportrayable one and
passes through all the sources of underlying things, we know not how
and in what fashion he comes. This, he says, is the saying: “We have
heard his voice, but we have not seen his shape.”[93] For, he says, the
voice of him who is set apart and has been impressed with the image[94]
is heard, but no one has seen what is the shape which has come down
from on high from the Unportrayable One. But it is in the earthly form
and no one is aware of it. This, he says, is the God who dwells in the
flood according to the Psalter and “who speaks aloud and cries from
many waters.”[95] “Many waters,” he says, is the manifold generation of
mortal men, wherefrom he shouts and cries [Sidenote: p. 163.] aloud to
the Unportrayable Man: “Deliver my only begotten from the lions!”[96]
In answer to this, he says, is the saying: “Thou art my son, O Israel.
Fear not. If thou passest through the rivers they shall not overwhelm
thee; if through the fire, it shall not burn thee.”[97] By rivers is
meant, he says, the moist essence of generation, and by fire the rage
and desire for generation. “Thou art mine. Be not afraid.” And again
he speaks: “If a mother forget her children and pities them not nor
gives them suck, yet will I not forget thee.”[98] Adamas, he says,
speaks to his own men: “But although a woman shall forget these things,
yet will I not forget you. I have graven you on my hands.”[99] But
concerning his ascension, that is, the being born again, that he may
be born spiritual, not fleshly, he says, the Scripture speaks: “Lift
up the gates, ye rulers, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and
the [Sidenote: p. 164.] King of Glory shall enter in.”[100] That is
the wonder of wonders. “For who,” he says, “is this King of Glory? A
worm and not a man, a reproach of man and an object of contempt for the
people. This is the King of Glory, he who is mighty in battle.”[101]
But he means the war which is in the body, because the (outward) form
is made from warring elements, he says, as it is written: “Remember the
war which is in the body.”[102] The same entrance and the same gate,
he says, Jacob saw when journeying to Mesopotamia--for Mesopotamia,
he says, is the flow of the great Ocean flowing forth from the middle
part[103] of the Perfect Man--and he wondered at the heavenly gate,
saying: “How terrible is this place! It is none other than the house
of God, and this is the gate of Heaven.”[104] Wherefore, he says, the
saying of Jesus: “I am the true gate.”[105] Now He who says this is,
he says, the Perfect [Sidenote: p. 165.] Man who has been impressed
above (with the image) of the Unportrayable one. Therefore he says, the
perfect man will not be saved unless born again by entering in through
this gate.
But this same one, he says, the Phrygians[106] call also Papas, because
he set at rest that which had been moved irregularly and discordantly
before his coming. For the name of Papa, he says, is (taken from) all
things in heaven, on earth, and below the earth, saying: “Make to
cease! make to cease![107] the discord of the cosmos and make peace for
those that are afar off,”[108] that is, for the material and earthly,
and also “for those that are anigh,” that is, for the spiritual and
understanding perfect men. But the Phrygians say that the same one is
also a “corpse,” having been buried in the body as in a monument or
tomb.[109] This, he says, is the saying: “Ye are whited sepulchres
filled within with dead men’s bones,”[110] that is, there is not within
you the living Man. And again, he says, “the dead shall leap forth
from their graves,”[111] that is, the spiritual man, not the fleshly,
shall be born again from the bodies of the earthly. This, he says, is
the resurrection which comes through the [Sidenote: p. 166.] gate of
the heavens, through which if they do not enter, all remain dead. And
the same Phrygians, he says again, say that this same one is by reason
of the change a god. For he becomes God when he arises from the dead
and enters into heaven through the same gate. This gate, he says, Paul
the Apostle knew, having set it ajar in mystery and declaring that he
“was caught up by an angel and came unto a second and third heaven into
Paradise itself and beheld what he beheld, and heard ineffable words
which it is not lawful for man to utter.”[112] These are, he says,
the mysteries called ineffable by all “which (we also speak) not in
the words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual; but the natural[113] man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him”;[114] and these, he says, are the ineffable mysteries of the
Spirit which we alone behold. Concerning them, he says, the Saviour
spake: “No man shall come unto me unless my heavenly Father draw some
one (unto me).”[115] For very hard it is, he says, to receive and take
this great and ineffable mystery. And [Sidenote: p. 167.] again, he
says, the Saviour spake: “Not every one who sayeth unto me, Lord! Lord!
shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he who doeth the will
of my Father who is in the heavens.”[116] Of which (will) he says, they
must be doers and not hearers only to enter into the kingdom of the
heavens. And again, says he, He spake: “The publicans and the harlots
go before you into the kingdom of the heavens.”[117] For the publicans,
he says, are those who receive the taxes of market-wares, and we are
the tax-gatherers “upon whom the ends of the æons have come down.”[118]
For the “ends,” he says, are the seeds sown in the cosmos by the
Unportrayable One,[119] whereby the whole cosmos is completed;[120]
for by them also it began to be. And this, he says, is the saying:
“The sower went forth to sow, and some (seed) fell on the wayside and
was trodden under foot, and some upon stony (parts) and sprang up;
and because it had no root, he says, it withered and died. But some
fell, he says, upon the fair and goodly earth and brought forth some
a hundredfold, and some sixty and some thirty. [Sidenote: p. 168.] He
that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”[121] This is, he says, that no
one becomes a hearer of these mysteries save only the perfect Gnostics.
This, he says, is the fair and goodly earth of which Moses spake: “I
will bring you to a fair and goodly land, to a land flowing with milk
and honey.”[122] This, he says, is the honey and the milk, tasting
which the perfect become kingless and partakers of the fulness.[123]
The same, he says, is the Pleroma, whereby all things that are begotten
by the unbegotten have come into being and are filled.
But the same one is called by the Phrygians “unfruitful.” For he is
unfruitful when he is fleshly and performs the desire of the flesh.
This, he says, is the saying: “Every tree which bringeth not forth
good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.”[124] For these fruits,
he says, are only the rational, the living man who enter by the third
gate.[125] They say, indeed: “Ye who eat dead things and make living
ones, what will ye make if ye eat living things?”[126] For they say
that words[127] and thoughts and men are living things cast down by
that Unportrayable One into the form [Sidenote: p. 169.] below. This,
he says, is what he means: “Throw not your holy things to the dogs nor
pearls to the swine,”[128] saying that the intercourse of woman with
man is the work of dogs and swine.
But this same one, he says, the Phrygians call goatherd, not because,
he says, he feeds goats and he-goats, as the psychic man calls
them, but because, he says, he is Aipolos, that is, he who is ever
revolving[129] and turning about and driving the whole cosmos in its
circumvolution. For to revolve is to turn about and to change the
position of things, whence, he says, the two centres of the heaven men
call Poles. And the poet says:--
“What unerring ancient of the sea turns hither
The Immortal Egyptian Proteus.”--
(_Odyssey_, IV, 384.)
He[130] is not betrayed (by Eidothea), he says, but turns himself
about, as it were, and goes to and fro. He says, too, that cities
wherein we dwell are called πόλεις, because [Sidenote: p. 170.] we turn
and go about in them. Thus, he says, the Phrygians call him Aipolos,
who turns everything always in every direction and changes it into
what it should be. But the Phrygians also call the same one “of many
fruits,” because (the Naassene writer) says, “the children of the
desolate are more in number than those of her who has a husband”;[131]
that is, the deathless things which are born again and ever remain are
many, if few are those which are born (once); but all the things of
the flesh, he says, are corruptible, even if those which are born are
many. Wherefore, he says, Rachel mourned for her children and would
not be comforted when mourning over them, for she knew, he says, that
they were not.[132] And Jeremiah wails for the Jerusalem below, not the
city in Phœnicia,[133] but the mortal generation below. For Jeremiah,
he says, also knew the Perfect Man who has been born again of water and
the spirit and is not fleshly. The same Jeremiah indeed said: “He is a
man, and who shall know him?”[134] Thus, he says, the knowledge of the
Perfect Man is very deep and hard to comprehend. For the beginning of
perfection, he says, is the knowledge of man; but the knowledge of God
is completed perfection.
[Sidenote: p. 171.] The Phrygians also say, however, that he is a
“green ear of corn reaped”; and following the Phrygians, the Athenians
when initiating (any one) into the Eleusinian (Mysteries) also show
to those who have been made epopts the mighty and wonderful and most
perfect mystery for an epopt[135] there--a green ear of corn reaped
in silence.[136] And this ear of corn is also for the Athenians the
great and perfect spark of light from the Unportrayable One; just as
the hierophant himself, not indeed castrated like Attis, but rendered a
eunuch by hemlock, and cut off from all fleshly generation, celebrating
by night at Eleusis the great and ineffable mysteries beside a huge
fire, cries aloud and makes proclamation, saying: “August Brimo has
brought forth a holy son, Brimos,” that is, the strong (has given
birth) to the strong.[137] For august is, he says, the generation which
is spiritual or heavenly or sublime, and strong is that which is thus
generated. For the mystery is called Eleusis or Anacterion: “Eleusis,”
he says, because we spiritual ones [Sidenote: p. 172.] came on high
rushing from the Adamas below.[138] For _eleusesthai_, he says is to
come, but _anactoreion_ the return on high. This, he says, is what they
who have been initiated into the mysteries of the Eleusinians say. But
it is a regulation that those who have been initiated into the Lesser
Mysteries should moreover be initiated into the Great. For greater
destinies obtain greater portions.[139] But the Lesser Mysteries, he
says, are those of Persephone below and of the way leading thither,
which is wide and broad and bears the dead to Persephone, and the poet
says:--
“But under her is a straight and rugged road
Hollow and muddy, but the best to lead
To the delightful grove of much-reverenced Aphrodite.”[140]
These, he says, are the Lesser Mysteries, those of fleshly generation,
after being initiated into which men ought to [Sidenote: p. 173.]
cease (from the small) and be initiated into the great and heavenly
ones. For those who have obtained greater destinies, he says, receive
greater portions. For this, he says, is the gate of heaven and this the
house of God where the good God dwells alone,[141] into which will not
enter, he says, any unpurified, any psychic or fleshly one; but it is
kept for the spiritual only, where those who are must cast aside[142]
their garments and all become bridegrooms, having come to maturity
through the virgin spirit.[143] For this is the virgin who bears in her
womb and conceives and gives birth to a son not psychic or corporeal,
but the blessed Aeon of Aeons. Concerning these things, he says, the
Saviour expressly spake: “Narrow and straitened is the way that leads
to life and few are those who enter into it; but wide and broad is the
way leading to destruction and many are they who pass along it.”[144]
9. But the Phrygians further say that the Father of the [Sidenote:
p. 174.] universals is Amygdalus, not a tree, he says, but that
pre-existent almond[145] which containing within itself the perfect
fruit (and) as if pulsating and stirring in the depth, tore asunder
its breasts and gave birth to its own invisible and unnameable and
ineffable boy of whom we are speaking.[146] For “Amyxai” is as if to
burst and cut asunder,[147] as he says, in the case of inflamed bodies
having within them any gathering, the surgeons who cut them open call
them “amychas.” Thus, he says, the Phrygians call the almond from whom
the invisible one proceeded and was born, and through whom all things
came into being and apart from whom nothing came into being.
But the Phrygians say that he who was thence born is a piper, because
that which was born is a melodious spirit. For God, he says, is a
Spirit, wherefore neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall
the true worshippers prostrate themselves, but in spirit.[148] For
spiritual, he says, is the prostration of the perfect, not fleshly. But
the Spirit, he says, (is) there where both the Father and the Son are
named, being [Sidenote: p. 175.] there born from this (Son and from)
the Father.[149] This, he says, is the many-named, myriad-eyed[150]
incomprehensible One for whom every nature yearns, but each in a
different way. This, he says, is the Word[151] of God, which is, he
says, the word of announcement of the great Power. Wherefore it will be
sealed and hidden and concealed, lying in the habitation wherein the
root of the universals[152] is established, that is[153] (the root) of
Aeons, Powers, Thoughts, Gods, Angels, Emissary Spirits, things which
are, things which are not, things begotten, things unbegotten, things
incomprehensible, things comprehensible, years, months, days, hours
(and) of an Indivisible Point,[154] from which what is least begins to
increase successively. The Point, he says, being nothing and consisting
of nothing (and) being indivisible will become of itself a certain
magnitude incomprehensible by thought.[155] It, he says, is the kingdom
of the heavens, the grain of mustard seed, the Indivisible Point
inherent to the body which none knoweth, he says, save the spiritual
alone. This, he says, is the saying: “There are no tongues nor speech
where their voice is not [Sidenote: p. 176.] heard.”[156]
Thus they hastily declare that the things which are said and are
done by all men are to be understood in their way, imagining that
all things become spiritual. Whence they also say that not even they
who exhibit (in the) theatres say or do anything not comprehended in
advance.[157] So for example, he says, when the populace have assembled
in the theatres[158] some one makes entrance clad in a notable robe
bearing a cithara and singing to it. Thus he speaks chanting the Great
Mysteries[159] (but) not knowing what he is saying:--
“Whether thou art the offspring of Kronos, or of blessed Zeus,
Or of mighty Rhea, Hail Attis, the sad mutilation of Rhea.[160]
The Assyrians call thee the much-longed-for Adonis,
[Sidenote: p. 177.] Egypt names thee Osiris, heavenly horn of
the Moon.[161]
The Greeks Sophia,[162] the Samothracians, the revered Adamna,
The Thessalians, Corybas, and the Phrygians
Sometimes Papas, now the dead, or a god,
Or the unfruitful one, or goatherd,
Or the green ear of corn reaped,
Or he to whom the flowering almond-tree gave birth
As a pipe-playing man.”[163]
This, he says, is the many-formed Attis to whom they sing praises,
saying:--
“I will hymn Attis, son of Rhea, not making quiver with a buzzing
sound, nor with the cadence of the Idæan Curetes’ flutes, but I will
mingle (with the hymn) the Phœbun music of the lyre. Evohe, Evan, for
(thou art) Bacchus, (thou art) Pan, (thou art the) shepherd of white
stars.”
For such and such-like words they frequent the so-called Mysteries of
the great Mother, thinking especially that by means of what is enacted
there, they perceive the whole mystery. For they get no advantage from
what is acted there except that they are not castrated. They merely
perfect the work of the castrated;[164] for they give most pointed and
careful instructions to abstain as if castrated from intercourse with
women. But the rest of the work as [Sidenote: p. 178.] we have said
many times, they perform like the castrated.
But they worship none other than the Naas, calling themselves
Naassenes. But Naas is the serpent, from whom he says, all temples
under heaven are called _naos_ from the Naas; and that to that Naas
alone is dedicated every holy place and every initiation and every
mystery, and generally that no initiation can be found under heaven
in which there is not a _naos_ and the Naas within it, whence it has
come to be called a _naos_. But they say that the serpent is the watery
substance, as did Thales of Miletos[165] and that no being, in short,
of immortals or mortals, of those with souls or of those without souls,
can be made without him. And that all things are set under him, and
that he is good and contains all things within him as in the horn of
the one-horned bull[166] (so as) to contribute beauty and bloom to all
things according to their own nature and kind, as if he had passed
through all “as if he went forth from Edem and cut himself into four
heads.”[167]
But this Edem, they say, is the brain, as it were bound [Sidenote: p.
179.] and enlaced in the surrounding coverings as in the heavens; and
they consider man as far as the head alone to be Paradise. Therefore
“the river that came forth from Eden”--that is from the brain--they
think “is separated into four heads and the name of the first river is
called Phison; this it is which encompasses all the land of Havilat.
There is gold and the gold of that land is good, and there is bdellium
and the onyx stone.”[168] This, he says, (is the) eye, bearing witness
by its honour (among the other features) and its colours to the
saying: “But the name of the second river is Gihon; this it is which
encompasses all the land of Ethiopia.” This, he says, is the hearing,
being somewhat like a labyrinth. “And the name of the third is Tigris;
this it is which goes about over against the Assyrians.” This, he says,
is the smell which makes use of the swiftest current of the flood.
And it goes about over against the Assyrians because in inspiration
the breath drawn in from the outer air is sharper and stronger than
the respired breath. For this is the nature of respiration. “The
fourth river is Euphrates.” This they say, is the mouth, which is the
seat of prayer and the entrance of food, [Sidenote: p. 180.] which
gladdens[169] and nourishes and characterizes[170] the spiritual
perfect man. This, he says, is the water above the firmament concerning
which, he says, the Saviour spake: “If thou knewest who it is that asks
thou would have asked of him, and he would have given thee to drink
living rushing water.”[171] To this water, he says, comes every nature
to choose its own substances,[172] and from this water goes forth to
every nature that which is proper to it, he says, more (certainly) than
iron to the magnet, gold to the spine of the sea-falcon and husks to
amber.[173] But if anyone, he says, is blind from birth, and has not
beheld the true light which lightens every man who cometh into the
world,[174] let him recover his sight again through us, and behold how
as it were through some Paradise full of all plants and seeds, the
water flows among them. Let him see, too, that from one and the same
water the olive-tree chooses and draws to itself oil, and the vine
wine, and each of the other plants (that which is) according to its
kind.
[Sidenote: p. 181.] But that Man, he says, is without honour in the
world, and much honoured [in heaven, being betrayed] by those who know
not to those who know him not, and accounted like a drop which falleth
from a vessel.[175] But we are, he says, the spiritual who have chosen
out of the living water, the Euphrates flowing through the midst of
Babylon, that which is ours, entering in through the true gate which
is Jesus the blessed. And we alone of all men are Christians, whom the
mystery in the third gate has made perfect, and have been anointed[176]
there with silent ointment from the horn like David and not from the
earthen vessel, he says, like Saul,[177] who abode with the evil spirit
of fleshly desire.
10. These things, then, we have set forth as a few out of many: for
the undertakings of folly which are nonsensical and madlike are
innumerable. But since we have expounded to the best of our ability
their unknowable gnosis, we have thought it right to add this also.
This psalm has been concocted by them, whereby they seem to hymn all
the [Sidenote: p. 182.] mysteries of their error thus:--[178]
The generic law of the universe was the primordial mind;
But the second was the poured-forth light[179] of the First-born:
And the third toiling soul received the Law as its portion.
Whence clothed in watery shape,
The loved one subject to toil (and) death,
[Sidenote: p. 183.] Now having lordship, she beholds the light,
Now cast forth to piteous state, she weeps.
Now she weeps (and now) rejoices;
Now laments (and now) is judged;
Now is judged (and now) is dying.
Now no outlet is left or she wandering
The labyrinth of woes has entered.[180]
But Jesus said: Father, behold!
A strife of woes upon Earth
From thy breath has fallen,
But she seeks to flee malignant chaos.
And knows not how to win through it,
For this cause send me, O Father,
[Sidenote: p. 184.] Holding seals I will go down,
Through entire æons I will pass,
All mysteries I will disclose;
The forms of the gods I will display;
The secrets of the holy way
Called Gnosis, I will hand down.
These things the Naassenes attempt, calling themselves Gnostics.[181]
But since the error is many-headed and truly of diverse shape like
the fabled Hydra, we, having struck off its heads at one blow by
refutation, (and) using the rod of Truth, will utterly destroy the
beast. For the remaining heresies differ little from this, they all
being linked together by one spirit of error. But since they by
changing the words and the names wish the heads of the serpent to be
many, we shall not thus fail to refute them thoroughly as they will.
[Sidenote: p. 185.] 2. _Peratæ._[182]
12. There is also indeed a certain other (heresy), the Peratic, the
blasphemy of whose (followers) against Christ has for many years evaded
(us). Whose secret mysteries it now seems fitting for us to bring into
the open. They suppose the cosmos to be one, divided into three parts.
But of this triple division, one part according to them is, as it were,
a single principle like a great source[183] which may be [Sidenote:
p. 186.] cut by the mind into boundless sections. And the first and
chiefest section according to them is the triad and (the one part of
it)[184] is called Perfect Good and Fatherly Greatness.[185] But the
second part of this triad of theirs is, as it were, a certain boundless
multitude of powers which have come into being from themselves, while
the third is (the world of) form. And the first is unbegotten and is
good; and the second is good (and) self-begotten, while the third is
begotten.[186] Whence they say expressly that there are three Gods,
three _logoi_, three minds, and three men. For they assign to each
part of the world of the divided divisibility, gods and _logoi_ and
minds and men and the rest. But they say that from on high, from the
unbegottenness and the first section of the cosmos, when the cosmos
had already been brought to completion, there came down through causes
which we shall declare later[187] in the days of Herod a certain
triple-bodied and triple-powered[188] man called Christ, containing
within Himself all the compounds[189] and powers from [Sidenote: p.
187.] the three parts of the cosmos. And this, he says is the saying:
“The whole Pleroma was pleased to dwell within Him bodily and the whole
godhead” of the Triad thus divided “is in Him.”[190] For, he says that
there were brought down from the two overlying worlds, (to wit) the
unbegotten and the self-begotten, unto this world in which we are,
seeds of all powers. But what is the manner of their descent we shall
see later.[191] Then he says that Christ was brought down from on high
from the unbegottenness so that through His descent all the threefold
divisions should be saved. For the things, he says, brought down below
shall ascend through Him; but those which take counsel together against
those brought down from above shall be banished and after they have
been punished shall be rooted out. This, he says, is the saying: “The
Son of Man came not into the world to destroy the world, but that
the world through Him might be saved.”[192] He calls “the world,” he
says, the two overlying portions, (to wit) the unbegotten and the
self-begotten. When the Scripture says: “Lest ye be judged with the
world,”[193] he says, it means the third part of the cosmos (to wit)
that of form. For the third part [Sidenote: p. 188.] which he calls
the world must be destroyed, but the two overlying ones preserved from
destruction.[194]
13. Let us first learn, then, how they who have taken this teaching
from the astrologers insult Christ, working destruction for those
who follow them in such error. For the astrologers, having declared
the cosmos to be one, divided it[195] into the twelve fixed parts of
the Zodiacal signs, and call the cosmos of the fixed Zodiacal signs
one unwandering world. But the other, they say, is the world of the
planets alike in power and in position and in number which exists as
far as the Moon.[196] And that one world receives from the other a
certain power and communion, and that things below partake of things
above. But so that what is said shall be made plain, I will use in
part the very words of the astrologers,[197] recalling to the readers
what was said before in the place where we set forth the whole art of
astrology. Their doctrines then are these: From the emanation of the
stars the genitures of things below are influenced. For the Chaldæans,
scrutinizing [Sidenote: p. 189.] the heavens with great care, said
that (the seven stars) account for the active causes of everything
which happens to us; but that the degrees of the Zodiacal circle work
with them. (Then they divide the Zodiacal circle into) 12 parts, and
each Zodiacal sign into 30 degrees and each degree into 60 minutes;
for these they call the least and the undivided. And they call some of
the Zodiacal signs male and others female, some bicorporal and others
not, some tropical and others firm. Then there are male or female
according as they have a nature co-operating in the begetting of males
(or females). Moved by which, I think[198] the Pythagoricians[199] call
the monad male, the dyad female, and the triad again male and in like
manner the rest of the odd and even numbers. And some dividing each
sign into dodecatemories employ [Sidenote: p. 190.] nearly the same
plan. For example, in Aries they call the first dodecatemory Aries and
masculine, its second Taurus and feminine, and its third Gemini and
masculine, and so on with the other parts. And they say that Gemini
and Sagittarius which stands opposite to it and Virgo and Pisces are
bicorporal signs, but the others not. And in like manner, those signs
are tropical in which the Sun turns about and makes the turnings of
the ambient, as, for example, the sign Aries and its opposite Libra,
Capricorn and Cancer. For in Aries, the spring turning occurs, in
Capricorn the winter, in Cancer the summer and in Libra the autumn.
These things also and the system concerning them we have briefly set
forth in the book before this, whence the lover of learning can learn
how Euphrates the Peratic and Celbes the Carystian, the founders of
the heresy, altering only the names, have really set down like things,
having also paid immoderate attention to the art. [Sidenote: p. 191.]
For the astrologers also say that there are “terms” of the stars in
which they deem the ruling stars to have greater power. For example
in some (they do evil), but in others good, of which they call these
malefic and those benefic. And they say that (the Planets) behold one
another and are in harmony with one another as they appear in trine
(or square). Now the stars beholding one another are figured in trine
when they have a space of three signs between them, but in square if
they have two. And as in the man the lower parts suffer with the head
and the head suffers with the lower parts, thus do the things on earth
[Sidenote: p. 192.] with those above the Moon. But (yet) there is a
certain difference and want of sympathy between them since they have
not one and the same unity.
This alliance and difference of the stars, although a Chaldæan
(doctrine), those of whom we have spoken before have taken as their
own and have falsified the name of truth. (For they) announce as the
utterance of Christ a strife of aeons and a falling-away of good powers
to the bad, and proclaim reconciliations of good and wicked.[200]
Then they invoke Toparchs and Proastii,[201] making for themselves
also very many other names which are not obvious but systematize
unsystematically the whole idea of the astrologers about the stars. As
they have thus laid the foundation of an enormous error they shall be
completely refuted by our appropriate arrangement. For I shall set side
by side with the aforesaid Chaldaic art of the astrologers some of the
doctrines of the Peratics, from which comparison it will be [Sidenote:
p. 193.] understood how the words of the Peratics are avowedly those of
the astrologers, but not of Christ.
14. It seems well then to use for comparison a certain one of the
books[202] magnified by them wherein it is said: “I am a voice of
awaking from sleep in the aeon of the night, (and) now I begin to
lay bare the power from Chaos. The power is the mud of the abyss,
which raises the mire of the imperishable watery void, the whole
power of the convulsion, pale as water, ever-moving, bearing with
it the stationary, holding back those that tremble, setting free
those that approach, relieving those that sigh, bringing down those
that increase, a faithful steward of the traces of the winds, taking
advantage of the things thrown up by the [Sidenote: p. 194.] twelve
eyes of the Law,[203] showing a seal to the power which arranges by
itself the onrushing unseen water which is called Thalassa.[204]
Ignorance has called this power Kronos guarded with chains since he
bound together the maze of the dense and cloudy and unknown and dark
Tartarus. There are born after the image of this (power) Cepheus,
Prometheus, Iapetus.[205] (The) power to whom Thalassa is entrusted is
masculo-feminine, who traces back the hissing (water) from the twelve
mouths of the twelve pipes and after preparing distributes it. (This
power) is small and reduces the boisterous restraining rising (of the
sea) and seals up the ways of her paths, so that nothing should declare
war or suffer change. The Typhonic daughter of this (power) is the
faithful guard of all sorts of waters. Her name is Chorzar. Ignorance
calls her Poseidôn, after whose likeness came Glaucus, Melicertes,
Iö,[206] Nebroë. He that is encircled with the 12-angled pyramid[207]
and darkens the gate into the pyramid [Sidenote: p. 195.] with divers
colours and perfects the whole blackness[208]--this one is called
Core[209] whose 5 ministers are: first Ou, 2nd Aoai, 3rd Ouô, 4th
Ouöab, 5th ... Other faithful stewards there are of his toparchy of
day and night who rest in their authority. Ignorance has called them
the wandering stars on which hangs perishable birth. Steward of the
rising of the wind[210] is Carphasemocheir (and second) Eccabaccara,
but ignorance calls these Curetes. (The) third ruler of the winds is
Ariel[211] after whose image came Æolus (and) Briares. And ruler of
the 12-houred night (is) Soclas[212] whom ignorance has called Osiris.
After his likeness there were born Admetus, Medea, Hellen, Aethusa.
Ruler of the 12-houred day-time is Euno. He is steward of the rising
of the first-blessed[213] and ætherial (goddess) whom ignorance calls
Isis. The sign of this (ruler) is the Dog-star[214] after whose image
were born Ptolemy son of Arsinoë, Didyme, Cleopatra, Olympias. (The)
right hand power of God is she whom [Sidenote: p. 196.] ignorance
calls Rhea, after whose image were born Attis, Mygdon,[215] Oenone.
The left-hand power has authority over nurture whom ignorance calls
Demeter. Her name is Bena. After the likeness of this (god) were born
Celeus, Triptolemus, Misyr,[216] Praxidice. (The) right-hand power
has authority over seasons. Ignorance calls this (god) Mena after
whose image were born, Bumegas,[217] Ostanes, Hermes Trismegistus,
Curites, Zodarion, Petosiris, Berosos, Astrampsychos, Zoroaster. (The)
left-hand power of fire. Ignorance calls him Hephæstus after whose
image were born Erichthonius, Achilleus, Capaneus, Phæthon, Meleager,
Tydeus, Enceladus, Raphael, Suriel,[218] Omphale. Three middle powers
suspended in air (are) causes of birth. Ignorance calls them Fates,
after whose image were born (the) house of Priam, (the) house of Laius,
Ino, Autonoë, Agave, Athamas, Procne (the) Danaids, the Peliades. A
masculo-feminine power there is ever childlike, who grows not old,
(the) cause of beauty, of pleasure, of prime, of yearning, of desire,
whom ignorance calls Eros, after whose [Sidenote: p. 197.] image were
born Paris, Narcissus, Ganymede, Endymion, Tithonus, Icarius, Leda,
Amymonê, Thetis, (the) Hesperides, Jason, Leander, Hero.” These are the
Proastii up to Aether. For thus he inscribes the book.
15. The heresy of the Peratæ, it has been made easily apparent to
all, has been adapted from the (art) of the astrologers with a change
of names alone. And their other books include the same method, if
any one cared to go through them. For, as I have said, they think
the unbegotten and overlying things to be the causes of birth of the
begotten, and that our world, which they call that of form, came into
being by emanation, and that all those stars together which are beheld
in the heaven become the causes of birth in this world, they changing
their names as is to be seen from a comparison of the Proastii. And
secondly after the same fashion indeed, as they say that the world came
into being from the emanation of her[219] on high, thus they say that
things here have their birth and death and are governed [Sidenote: p.
198.] by the emanation from the stars. Since then the astrologers know
the Ascendant and Mid-heaven and the Descendant and the Anti-meridian,
and as the stars sometimes move differently from the perpetual turning
of the universe, and at other times there are other succeedents to
the cardinal point and (other) cadents from the cardinal points, (the
Peratæ) treating the ordinance of the astrologers as an allegory,
picture the cardinal points as it were God and monad and lord of all
generation, and the succeedent as the left hand and the cadent the
right. When therefore any one reading their writings finds a power
spoken of by them as right or left, let him refer to the centre, the
succeedent and the cadent, and he will clearly perceive that their
whole system of practice has been established on astrological teaching.
16. But they call themselves Peratæ, thinking that nothing which has
its foundations in generation can escape the fate determined from
birth for the begotten. For if anything, he says, is begotten it
also perishes wholly, as it seemed also [Sidenote: p. 199.] to the
Sibyl.[220] But, he says, we alone who know the compulsion of birth and
the paths whereby man enters into the world and have been carefully
instructed--we alone can pass through[221] and escape destruction.
But water, he says, is destruction, and never, he says, did the world
perish quicker than by water. But the water which rolls around the
Proastii is, they say, Kronos. For such a power, he says, is of the
colour of water and this power, that is Kronos, none of those who have
been founded in generation can escape. For Kronos is set as a cause
over every birth so that it shall be subject to destruction[222] and no
birth could occur in which Kronos is not an impediment. This, he says
is what the poets say and the gods (themselves) also fear:--
Let earth be witness thereto and wide heaven above
And the water of Styx that flows below.
The greatest of oaths and most terrible to the blessed gods.--
(Homer, _Odyssey_, vv. 184 ff.)
But not only do the poets say this, he says, but also the wisest of the
Greeks, whereof Heraclitus is one, who says, [Sidenote: p. 200.] “For
water becomes death to souls.”[223]
This death (the Peratic) says seizes the Egyptians in the Red Sea
with their chariots. And all the ignorant, he says, are Egyptians and
this he says is the going out from Egypt (that is) from the body. For
they think the body little Egypt (and) that it crosses over the Red
Sea, that is, the water of destruction which is Kronos, and that it
is beyond the Red Sea, that is birth, and comes into the desert, that
is, outside generation where are together the gods of destruction and
the god of salvation. But the gods of destruction, he says, are the
stars which bring upon those coming into being the necessity of mutable
generation. These, he said, Moses called the serpents of the desert
which bite and cause to perish those who think they have crossed the
Red Sea. Therefore, he says, to those sons of Israel who were bitten
in the desert, Moses displayed the true and perfect serpent, those who
believed on which were not bitten in the desert, [Sidenote: p. 201.]
that is, by the Powers. None then, he says, can save and set free those
brought forth from the land of Egypt, that is, from the body and from
this world, save only the perfect serpent, the full of the full.[224]
He who hopes on this, he says, is not destroyed by the serpents of
the desert, that is, by the gods of generation. It is written, he
says, in a book of Moses.[225] This serpent, he says, is the Power
which followed Moses, the rod which was turned into a serpent. And the
serpents of the magicians who withstood the power of Moses in Egypt
were the gods of destruction; but the rod of Moses overthrew them all
and caused them to perish.
This universal serpent, he says, is the wise word of Eve. This, he
says, is the mystery of Edem, this the river flowing out of Edem,
this the mark which was set on Cain so that all that found him should
not kill him. This, he says, is (that) Cain whose sacrifice was not
accepted by the god of this world; but he accepted the bloody sacrifice
of Abel, for the lord of this world delights in blood.[226] He it is,
he says, who in the last days appeared in man’s shape in the [Sidenote:
p. 202.] time of Herod, born after the image of Joseph who was sold
from the hand of his brethren and to whom alone belonged the coat
of many colours. This, he says, is he after the image of Esau whose
garment was blessed when he was not present, who did not receive,
he says, the blind man’s blessing, but became rich elsewhere taking
nothing from the blind one, whose face Jacob saw as a man might see
the face of God. Concerning whom he says, it is written that: “Nebrod
was a giant hunting before the Lord.”[227] There are, he says, as
many counterparts of him as there were serpents seen in the desert
biting the sons of Israel, from which that perfect one that Moses set
up delivered those that were bitten. This, he says, is the saying:
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of
Man be lifted up.”[228] After his likeness was the brazen serpent in
the desert which Moses set up. The similitude of this alone is always
seen in the heaven in light. This he says is the mighty beginning
about which it is written. About this he says is the saying: “In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and [Sidenote: p.
203.] the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things
were made by Him and without Him nothing was. That which was in Him was
life.”[229] And in Him, he says, Eve came into being (and) Eve is life.
She, he says is Eve, mother of all living[230] (the) nature common (to
all), that is, to gods, angels, immortals, mortals, irrational beings,
and rational ones; for, he says, “to all” speaking collectively. And if
the eyes of any are blessed, he says, he will see when he looks upward
to heaven the fair image of the serpent in the great summit[231] of
heaven turning about and becoming the source of all movement of all
present things. And (the beholder) will know that without Him there is
nothing framed of heavenly or of earthly things or of things below the
earth--neither night, nor moon, nor fruits, nor generation, nor wealth,
nor wayfaring, nor generally is there anything of things which are that
He does not point out. In this, he says, is the great wonder beheld in
the heavens by those who can see.
For against this summit (that is) the head which is the most difficult
of all things to be believed by those who know it not,
[Sidenote: p. 204.] “The setting and rising mingle with one
another.”--
(Aratus, _Phain._, v. 62.)
This it is concerning which ignorance speaks:--
“The Dragon winds, great wonder of dread portent.”--
(_Ibid._, v. 46.)
and on either side of him Corona and Lyra are ranged and above, by the
very top of his head, a piteous man, the Kneeler, is seen
“Holding the sole of the right foot of winding Draco.”--
(_Ibid._, v. 70.)
And in the rear of the Kneeler is the imperfect serpent grasped with
both hands by Ophiuchus and prevented from touching the Crown lying by
the Perfect Serpent.[232]
17. This is the variegated wisdom of the Peratic heresy, which is
difficult to describe completely, it being so tangled through having
been framed from the art of astrology. So far as it was possible,
therefore, we have set forth all its force in few words. But in order
to expound their whole mind in epitome we think it right to add
this: According to them the universe is Father, Son and Matter.[233]
[Sidenote: p. 205.] Of these three every one contains within himself
boundless powers. Now midway between Matter and the Father sits the
Son, the Word, the Serpent, ever moving himself towards the immoveable
Father and towards Matter (which itself) is moved. And sometimes he
turns himself towards the Father and receives the powers in his own
person,[234] and when he has thus received them he turns towards
Matter; and Matter being without quality and formless takes pattern
from the forms[235] which the Son has taken as patterns from the
Father. But the Son takes pattern from the Father unspeakably and
silently and unchangeably, that is, as Moses says the colours of
the (sheep) that longed,[236] flowed from the rods set up in the
drinking-places. In such a way also did the powers flow from the Son
to Matter according to the yearning of the power which (flowed) from
the rods upon the things conceived. But the difference and unlikeness
of the colours which flowed from the rods through the waters into the
sheep is, he says, the difference of corruptible and incorruptible
birth. Or rather, as a painter while taking nothing from the animals
(he paints), yet transfers with his pencil to the drawing-tablet all
their forms, thus the Son by his own power transfers to Matter the
[Sidenote: p. 206.] types[237] of the Father. All things that are here
are therefore the Father’s types and nothing else. For if any one, he
says has strength enough to comprehend from the things here that he
is a type from the Father on high transferred hither and made into a
body, as in the conception from the rod, he becomes white,[238] (and)
wholly of one substance[239] with the Father who is in the heavens,
and returns thither. But if he does not light upon this doctrine, nor
discover the necessity of birth, like an abortion brought forth in a
night he perishes in a night. Therefore, says he, when the Saviour
speaks of “Your Father who is in heaven”[240] He means him from whom
the Son takes the types and transfers them hither. And when He says
“Your father is a manslayer from the beginning”[241] he means the Ruler
and Fashioner of Matter who receiving the types distributed by the
Son has produced children here. Who is a manslayer from the beginning
because his work makes for corruption and death.[242] None therefore,
he says, can be saved nor [Sidenote: p. 207.] return (on high) save by
the Son who is the Serpent. For as he brought from on high the Father’s
types, so he again carries up from here those of them who have been
awakened and have become types of the Father, transferring them thither
from here as hypostatized from the Unhypostatized[243] One. This, he
says, is the saying “I am the Door.” But he transfers them, he says (as
the light of vision)[244] to those whose eyelids are closed, as the
naphtha draws everywhere the fire to itself--or rather as the magnet
the iron but nothing else, or as the sea-hawk’s spine the gold but
nothing else, or as again (as) the chaff is drawn by the amber.[245]
Thus, he says, the perfect and consubstantial race which has been made
the image[246] (of the Father) but nought else is again led from the
world by the Serpent, just as it was sent down here by him.
For the proof of this they bring forward the anatomy of the brain,
likening the cerebrum to the Father from its immobility, and the
cerebellum to the Son from its being moved and existing in serpent
form. Which (last) they imagine ineffably and without giving any sign
to attract [Sidenote: p. 208.] through the pineal gland the spiritual
and life-giving substance emanating from the Blessed One.[247]
Receiving which the cerebellum, as the Son silently transfers the forms
to Matter, spreads abroad the seeds and genera of things born after
the flesh, to the spinal marrow. By the use of this simile, they seem
to introduce cleverly their ineffable mysteries handed down in silence
which it is not lawful for us to utter. Nevertheless they will easily
be comprehended from what I have said.
18. But since I think I have set forth clearly the Peratic heresy
and by many words have made plain what had escaped (notice), and
since it has mixed up everything with everything concealing its own
peculiar poison, it seems right to proceed no further with the charge,
the opinions laid down by them being sufficient accusation against
them.[248]
3. _The Sethiani._
[Sidenote: p. 209.] 19. Let us see then what the Sethians say.[249]
They are of opinion[250] that there are three definite principles of
the universals, and that each of the principles contains boundless
powers. But what they mean by powers let him judge who hears them speak
thus: Everything which you understand by your mind or which you pass by
unthought of, is formed by nature to become each of these principles,
as in the soul of man every art which is taught. For example, he says,
that a boy will become a piper if he spend some time with a piper,
or a geometrician if he does so with a geometrician, or a grammarian
with a grammarian, or a carpenter with a carpenter, and to one in
close contact with other trades it will happen in the same way. But
the substance of the principles, he says, are light and darkness; and
between them there is uncontaminated spirit. But the spirit which is
set between the darkness below and the light on high, is not breath
like a gust of wind or some little [Sidenote: p. 210.] breeze which can
be perceived, but resembles some faint perfume of balsam or of incense
artificially compounded, as a power penetrating by force of a fragrance
inconceivable and better than can be said in speech. But since the
light is above and the darkness below and the spirit as has been said
between them, the light naturally shines like a ray of the sun on high
on the underlying darkness, and again the fragrance of the spirit
having the middle place spreads abroad and is borne in all directions,
as we observe the fragrance of the incense burnt in the fire carried
everywhere. And such being the power of the triply divided, the power
of the spirit and of the light together is in the darkness which is
ranged below them. But the darkness is a fearful water, into which the
light with the spirit is drawn down and transformed into such a nature
(as the water).[251] And the darkness is not witless, but prudent
completely, and knows that if the light be taken from the darkness, the
darkness remains desolate, viewless, without light, [Sidenote: p. 211.]
powerless, idle, and strengthless. Wherefore with all its sense and wit
it is forced to detain within itself the brilliance and spark of the
light with the fragrance of the spirit. And an image of their nature
is to be seen in the face of man, (to wit) the pupil of the eye dark
from the underlying fluids, (and) lighted up by (the) spirit. As then
the darkness seeks after the brilliance, that it may hold the spark as
a slave and may see, so do the light and the spirit seek after their
own power, and make haste to raise up and take back to themselves their
powers which have been mingled with the underlying dark and fearful
water.[252] But all the powers of the three principles being everywhere
boundless in number are each of them wise and understanding as regards
its own substance, and the countless multitude of them being wise and
understanding, whenever they remain by themselves are all at rest.
But if one power draws near to another, the unlikeness of (the things
in) juxtaposition effects a certain movement and activity formed from
the movement, by the coming together and juxtaposition of the meeting
[Sidenote: p. 212.] powers. For the coming together of the powers comes
to pass like some impression of a seal struck by close conjunction
for the sealing of the substances brought up (to it).[253] Since then
the powers of the three principles are boundless in number and the
conjunctions of the boundless powers (also) boundless, there must
needs be produced images of boundless seals. Now these images are the
forms[254] of the different animals.
From the first great conjunction then of the three principles came into
being a certain great form of a seal, (to wit) heaven and earth. And
heaven and earth are planned very like a matrix having the navel[255]
in the midst. And if, he says, one wishes to have this design under his
eyes, let him examine with skill the pregnant womb of any animal he
pleases, and he will discover the type of heaven and earth and of all
those things between which lie unchangeably below. And the appearance
of heaven and earth became by the first conjunction such as to be like
a womb. But again between heaven and earth boundless conjunctions of
powers have occurred. And each conjunction wrought and stamped[256]
nothing else than a seal of [Sidenote: p. 213.] heaven and earth like a
womb. But within this (the earth) there grew from the boundless seals
boundless multitudes of different animals. And into all this infinity
which is under heaven there was scattered and distributed among the
different animals, together with the light, the fragrance of the spirit
from on high.
Then there came into being from the water the first-born[257] principle
(to wit) a wind violent and turbulent and the cause of all generation.
For making some agitation in the waters it raises waves in them. But
the motion of the waves as if it were some impregnating impulse is
a beginning of generation of man or beast when it is driven onward
swollen by the impulse of the spirit. But when this wave has been
raised from the water and made pregnant in the natural way, and has
received within itself the feminine power of reproduction, it retains
the light scattered from on high together with the fragrance of the
spirit--that [Sidenote: p. 214.] is mind given shape in the different
species.[258] Which (mind) is a perfect God, who is brought down from
the unbegotten light on high and from the spirit into man’s nature as
into a temple, by the force of nature and the movement of the wind. It
has been engendered from the water (and) commingled and mixed with the
bodies as if it were (the) salt of the things which are and a light
of the darkness struggling to be freed from the bodies and not able
to find deliverance and its way out. For some smallest spark from the
light (has been mingled) with the fragrance from above (_i. e._ from
the spirit), like a ray (making composition of things dissolved and)
solution of things compounded as, he says, is said in a psalm.[259]
Therefore every thought and care of the light on high is how and in
what way the mind may be set free from the death of the wicked and dark
body (and) from the Father of that which is below, who is the wind
which raised the waves in agitation and disorder [Sidenote: p. 215.]
and has begotten Nous his own perfect son, not being his own (son) as
to substance.[260] For he was a ray from on high from that perfect
light overpowered in the dark and fearful bitter and polluted water,
which (ray) is the shining spirit borne above the water. When then the
waves (raised from the) waters [have received within themselves the
feminine power of reproduction, they detain in[261]] the different
species, like some womb, (the light) scattered (from on high), (with
the fragrance of the spirit) as is seen in all animals.
But the wind at once violent and turbulent is borne along like the
hissing of a serpent. First then from the wind, that is from the
serpent, came the principle of generation in the way aforesaid,[262]
all things having received the principle of generation at the same
time. When then the light and the spirit were received into the
unpurified [Sidenote: p. 216.] and much suffering disordered womb,
the serpent, the wind of the darkness, the first-born of the waters
entering in, begets man, and the unpurified womb neither loves nor
recognizes any other form (but the serpent’s).[263] Then the perfect
Word of the light on high, having been made like the beast, the
serpent, entered into the unpurified womb, beguiling it by its likeness
to the beast, so that it might loose the bands which encircle the
Perfect Mind which was begotten in the impurity of the womb by the
first-born of the water, (to wit) the serpent, the beast. This, he
says, is the form of the slave[264] and this the need for the descent
of the Word of God into the womb of a Virgin. But it is not enough,
he says, that the Perfect Man, the Word, has entered into the womb of
a virgin and has loosed the pangs which were in that darkness. But
in truth after entering into the foul mysteries of the womb, He was
washed[265] and drank of the cup of living bubbling water, which he
must needs drink who was about to do off the slave-like form and do on
a heavenly garment.
[Sidenote: p. 217.] 20. This is what the champions of the Sethianian
doctrines say, to put it shortly. But their system is made up of
sayings by physicists and of words spoken in respect of other matters,
which they transfer to their own system and explain as we have said.
And they say that Moses also supported their theory when he said
“Darkness, gloom and whirlwind.” These, he says, are the three words.
Or when he says that there were three born in Paradise, Adam, Eve (and
the) Serpent; or when he says three (others), Cain, Abel (and) Seth;
and yet again three, Shem, Ham (and) Japhet; or when he speaks of three
patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, (and) Jacob; or when he says that there
existed three days before the Sun and Moon; or when he says that there
are three laws (the) prohibitive, (the) permissive and the punitive.
And a prohibitive law is: “From every tree in Paradise thou mayest eat
the fruit, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, eat not.” But
in this saying: “Go forth from thine own land, and from thy kindred and
(thou shalt come) hither into a land which I shall show thee.” This
law he says is permissive for he who chooses may go forth and he who
chooses may remain. But the law is punitive which says “Thou shalt not
commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not murder”--for to
each of these sins there is a penalty.[266]
[Sidenote: p. 218.] But the whole teaching of their system is taken
from the ancient theologists Musæus, Linus and he who most especially
makes known the initiations and mysteries (to wit), Orpheus. For their
discourse about the womb is also that of Orpheus; and the phallus,
which is virility, is thus explicitly mentioned in the _Bacchica_ of
Orpheus.[267] And these things were made the subject of initiation
and were handed down to men, before the initiatory rite of Celeus,
Triptolemus, Demeter, Core and Dionysos in Eleusis, at Phlium in
Attica. For earlier than the Eleusinian Mysteries are the secret rites
of the so-called Great (Mother) in Phlium. For there is in that (town)
a porch, and on the porch to this day is engraved the representation
of all the words spoken (in them). [Sidenote: p. 219.] Many things are
engraved on that porch concerning which Plutarch also makes discourse
in his ten books against Empedocles. And on the doors is engraved a
certain old man grey-haired, winged, having his _pudendum_ stretched
forth, pursuing a fleeing woman of a blue colour. And there is written
over the old man “Phaos ruentes” and over the woman “Pereēphicola.”
But “phaos ruentes” seems to be the light according to the theory of
the Sethians and the “phicola” the dark water, while between them is at
an interval the harmony of the spirit. And the name of “Phaos ruentes”
denotes the rushing below of the light as they say from on high. So
that we may reasonably say that the Sethians celebrate among themselves
(rites) in some degree akin to the Phliasian Mysteries of the Great
(Mother).[268] And to the triple division of things the poet seems to
bear witness when he says:--
“And in three lots were all things divided
And each drew his own domain.”--
(Homer, _Il._, XV, 189.[269])
that is each of the threefold divisions has taken power. [Sidenote: p.
220.] And, as for the underlying dark water below, that the light has
plunged into it and that the spark borne down (into it) ought to be
restored and taken on high from it, the all-wise Sethians seem to have
here borrowed from Homer when he says:--
“Let earth be witness and wide heaven above
And the water of Styx that flows below
The greatest oath and most terrible to the blessed gods.”[270]--
(_Il._ XV, 36-38.)
That is, the gods, according to Homer, think water something ill-omened
and frightful, wherefore the theory of the Sethians says it is
frightful to the Nous.
21. This is what they say and other things like it in endless writings.
And they persuade those who are their disciples to read the theory of
Composition and Mixture[271] which is studied by many others and by
Andronicus the Peripatetic. The Sethians then say that the theory about
Composition and Mixture is to be framed after this fashion: The light
ray from on high has been compounded and the [Sidenote: p. 221.] very
small spark has been lightly mingled[272] in the dark waters below, and
(these two) have united and exist in one mass as one odour (results)
from the many kinds of incense on the fire. And the expert who has
as his test an acute sense of smell ought to delicately distinguish
from the sole smell of the incense the different kinds of it set on
the fire; as (for example) if it be storax and myrrh and frankincense
or if anything else be mixed with it. And they make use of other
comparisons, as when they say that if brass has been mixed with gold, a
certain process[273] has been discovered which separates the gold from
the brass. And in like manner if tin or brass or anything of the same
kind be found mixed with silver, these by some better process of alloy
are also separated. But even now any one distinguishes water mixed
with wine. Thus, he says, if all things are mingled together they are
distinguished. And truly, he says, learn from the animals. For when the
animal is dead each (of its parts) is separated (from the rest) and
thus when dissolved, the animal disappears. This he says is the saying:
“I come not to bring peace upon the earth but a sword”[274]--that is
to cut in twain and separate the things [Sidenote: p. 222.] which have
been compounded together. For each of the compounds is cut in twain and
separated when it lights on its proper place. For as there is one place
of composition for all the animals, so there has been set up one place
of dissolution, which no man knoweth, he says, save only we who are
born again, spiritual not fleshly, whose citizenship is in the heavens
above.
With these insinuations they corrupt their hearers, both when they
misuse words, turning good sayings into bad as they wish, and when they
conceal their own iniquity by what comparisons they choose. All things
then, he says, which are compounds have their own peculiar place and
run towards their own kindred things as the iron to the magnet, the
straw to the amber, and the gold to the sea-hawk’s spine.[275] And thus
the (ray) of light which was mingled with the water having received
from teaching and learning (the knowledge of) its own proper place
hastens to the Word come from on high in slave-like form and becomes
with the Word a Word where the Word is, more (quickly) than the iron
(flies) to the magnet.
[Sidenote: p. 223.] And that these things are so, he says, and that
all compounded things are separated at their proper places, learn
(thus):--There is among the Persians in the city Ampa near the Tigris
a well, and near this well and above it has been built a cistern
having three outlets. From which well if one draws, and takes up in a
jar what is drawn from the well whatever it is and pours it into the
cistern hard by; when it comes to the outlets and is received from each
outlet in one vessel, it separates itself. And in the first outlet is
exhibited an incrustation[276] of salt, and in the second bitumen,
and in the third oil. But the oil is black, as he says Herodotus also
recounts,[277] has a heavy odour and the Persians call it _rhadinace_.
This simile of the well, say the Sethians, suffices for the truth of
their proposition better than all that has been said above.
22. The opinion of the Sethians seems to us to have been made tolerably
plain. But if any one wishes to learn the whole of their system let him
read the book inscribed _Paraphrase (of) Seth_; for all their secrets
he will find there enshrined.[278] But since we have set forth the
things of the [Sidenote: p. 224.] Sethians[279] let us see also what
Justinus thinks.
4. _Justinus._[280]
23. Justinus, being utterly opposed to every teaching of the Holy
Scriptures, and also to the writing or speech[281] of the blessed
Evangelists, since the Word taught his disciples saying: “Go not into
the way of the Gentiles”[282]--which is plainly: Give no heed to the
vain teaching of the Gentiles--seeks to bring back his hearers to
the marvel-mongering of the Greeks and what is taught by it. He sets
out word for word and in detail the fabulous tales of the Greeks,
but neither teaches first hand[283] nor hands down his own complete
mystery unless he has bound the dupe by an oath. Thereafter he explains
the myth for the purpose of winning souls,[284] so that those who
read the numberless follies of the books shall have the fables as
consolation[285]--as if one tramping along a road and coming across an
inn should see fit to rest--and so that when they have again turned to
the [Sidenote: p. 225.] full study of the things read, they may not
detest them until, being led on by the rush of the crowd, they have
plunged into the offence artfully contrived by him, having first bound
them by fearful oaths neither to utter nor to abandon his teaching and
compelling them to accept it. Thus he delivers to them the mysteries
impiously sought out by him, using as aforesaid the Greek myths and
partly corrupted books according to what they indicate of the aforesaid
heresies. For they all, drawn by one spirit, are led into a deep
pit (of error) but each narrates and mythologizes the same things
differently. But they all call themselves especially Gnostics, as if
they alone had drunk in the knowledge of the perfect and good.
24. But swear, says Justinus, if you wish to know the things “which
eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart
of man,”[286] (that is) Him who is good above all things, the Highest,
to keep the ineffable secrets of the teaching. For our Father also,
when he saw the Good One and was perfected by him, kept silence as
to [Sidenote: p. 226.] the secrets[287] and swore as it is written:
“The Lord sware and will not repent.”[288] Having then thus sealed up
these (secrets), he turns their minds to many myths through a quantity
(of books), and thus leads to the Good One, perfecting the mystæ by
unspoken mysteries. But we shall not travel through more (of his
works). We shall give as a sample the ineffable things from one book
of his, it being one which he clearly thinks of high repute. It is
inscribed _Baruch_.[289] We shall disclose one myth set forth in it by
him out of many, it being also in Herodotus. Having transformed[290]
this, he tells it to his hearers as new, the whole system of his
teaching being made up out of it.
25. Now Herodotus[291] says that Heracles when driving Geryon’s oxen
from Erytheia[292] came to Scythia and being wearied by the way lay
down to sleep in some desert place for a short time. While he was
asleep his horse disappeared, mounted on which he had made his long
journey.[293] On waking he made search over most of the desert in the
attempt to find his horse. He entirely misses the horse, [Sidenote: p.
227.] but finding a certain semi-virgin girl[294] in the desert, he
asks her if she had seen the horse anywhere. The girl said that she had
seen it, but would not at first show it to him unless Heracles would go
with her to have connection with her. But Herodotus says that the upper
part of the girl as far as the groin was that of a virgin, but that the
whole body below the groin had in some sort the frightful appearance of
a viper. But Heracles, being in a hurry to find his horse yielded to
the beast. For he knew her and made her pregnant, and foretold to her
after connection that she had in her womb three sons by him who would
be famous.[295] And he bade her when they were born to give them the
names Agathyrsus, Gelonus, and Scytha. And taking the horse from the
beast-like girl as his reward, he went away with his oxen. But after
this, there is a long story in Herodotus.[296] Let us dismiss it at
present. But we will explain something of what Justinus teaches when
he turns this myth into (one of) the generation of the things of the
universe.
26. This he says: There were three unbegotten principles of the
universals,[297] two male and one female. And [Sidenote: p. 228.] of
the male, one is called the Good One, he alone being thus called, and
he has foreknowledge of the universals. And the second is the Father
of all begotten things, not having foreknowledge and being (unknowable
and)[298] invisible. But the female is without foreknowledge,
passionate, two-minded, two-bodied, in all things resembling Herodotus’
myth, a virgin to the groin and a viper below, as says Justinus.
And this maiden is called Edem and Israel. These, he says, are the
principles of the universals, their roots and sources, by which all
things came into being, beside which nothing was. Then the Father
without foreknowledge, beholding the semi-virgin, who was Edem, came
to desire of her. This Father, he says, is called Elohim.[299] Not
less did Edem desire Elohim, and desire brought them together into
one favour of love. And the Father from such congress begot on Edem
twelve angels of his own. And the names of these angels of the Father
are: Michael, Amen, Baruch, Gabriel, Esaddæus.[300]... And the names
of the angels of the Mother which Edem created are likewise set down.
These are: Babel, Achamoth, Naas, Bel, Belias, [Sidenote: p. 229.]
Satan, Saêl, Adonaios, Kavithan, Pharaoh, Karkamenos, Lathen.[301] Of
these twenty-four angels the paternal ones join with the Father and do
everything in accordance with his will, but the maternal angels (side)
with the Mother, Edem. And he says that Paradise is the multitude of
these angels taken together; concerning which Moses says: “God planted
a Paradise in Edem towards the East,”[302] that is, towards the face
of Edem that Edem might ever behold Paradise, that is, the angels.
And the angels of this Paradise are allegorically called trees,[303]
and Baruch, the third angel of the Father, is the Tree of Life, and
Naas, the third angel of the Mother is the Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil.[304] For thus, he says, the (words) of Moses ought to be
interpreted, saying: Moses declared them covertly, because all do not
come to the truth.
But he says also when Paradise was produced from the mutual pleasure of
Elohim and Edem, the angels of Elohim taking (dust) from the fairest
earth, that is, not from the beast-like parts of Edem, but from the
man-like and cultivated regions of the earth above the groin, create
man. But from the beast-like parts, he says, the wild beasts and
[Sidenote: p. 230.] other animals are produced. Now they made man
as a symbol of their[305] unity and good-will and placed in him the
powers of each, Edem (supplying) the soul and Elohim the spirit.[306]
And there thus came into being a certain seal, as it were and actual
memorial of love and an everlasting sign of the marriage of Elohim and
Edem, (to wit) a man who is Adam. And in like manner also, Eve came
into being as Moses has written, an image and a sign and a seal to be
for ever preserved of Edem. And there was likewise placed in Eve the
image, a soul from Edem but a spirit from Elohim. And commands were
given to them, “Increase and multiply and replenish the earth,”[307]
that is Edem, for so he would have it written. For the whole of her own
power Edem brought to Elohim as it were some dowry in marriage. Whence,
he says, in imitation of that first marriage, women unto this day bring
freely to their husbands in obedience to a certain divine and ancestral
law (a dowry) which is that of Edem to Elohim.
But when heaven and earth and the things which were therein had been
created as it is written by Moses, the twelve angels of the Mother were
divided into four authorities and each quarter, he says, is called
a river, (to wit) Phison and Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates, as Moses
says: [Sidenote: p. 231.] These twelve angels visiting the four parts
encompass and arrange the world, having a certain satrapial[308] power
over the world by the authority of Edem. But they abide not always in
their own places, but as it were in a circular dance, they go about
exchanging place for place, and at certain times and intervals giving
up the places assigned to them. When Phison has rule over the places,
famine, distress and affliction come to pass in that part of the world,
for miserly is the array of these angels. And in like manner in each of
the quarters according to the nature and power of each, come evil times
and troops of diseases. And evermore the flow of evil according to the
rule of the quarters, as if they were rivers, by the will of Edem goes
unceasingly about the world.
But from some such cause as this did the necessity of evil come
about.[309] When Elohim had built and fashioned [Sidenote: p. 232.] the
world from mutual pleasure, he wished to go up to the highest parts
of heaven and to see whether any of the things of creation lacked
aught. And he took his own angels with him, for he was (by nature) one
who bears upward, and left below Edem, for she being earth did not
wish to follow her spouse on high. Then Elohim coming to the upper
limit of heaven and beholding a light better than that which himself
had fashioned, said: “Open unto me the gates that I may enter in and
acknowledge the Lord: For I thought that I was the Lord.”[310] And a
voice from the light answered him, saying: “This is the gate of the
Lord (and) the just enter through it.” And straightway the gate was
opened, and the Father entered without his angels into the presence of
the Good One and saw “what eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it
entered into the heart of man.” Then the Good One says to him, “Sit
thou on my right hand.”[311] But the Father says to the Good One:
“Suffer me, O Lord, to overturn the world which I have made; for my
spirit is bound in men and I wish to recover it.” Then says the Good
One to him: “While with me thou canst do no evil; for thou and Edem
made the world from mutual pleasure. Let therefore Edem hold creation
[Sidenote: p. 233.] while she will;[312] but do thou abide with me.”
Then Edem knowing that she had been abandoned by Elohim was grieved,
and sat beside her own angels and adorned herself gloriously lest haply
Elohim coming to desire of her should descend to her.
But since Elohim being ruled by the Good One did not come down to Edem,
she gave command to Babel, who is Aphrodite, to bring about fornication
and dissolutions of marriage among men, in order that as she was
separated from Elohim, so also might the (spirit) of Elohim which is in
men be tortured, (and) grieved by such separations and might suffer the
same things as she did on being abandoned. And Edem gave great power to
her third angel Naas,[313] that he might punish with all punishments
the spirit of Elohim which is in men, so that through the spirit Elohim
might be punished for having left his spouse contrary to their vows.
The Father Elohim seeing this sent forth his third angel Baruch to the
help of the spirit which is in men. [Sidenote: p. 234.] Then Baruch
came again and stood in the midst of the angels--for the angels are
Paradise in the midst of which he stood--and gave commandment to the
man: “From every tree which is in Paradise freely eat, but from (the
tree) of Knowledge of Good and Evil eat not,”[314] which tree is Naas.
That is to say: Obey the eleven other angels of Edem for the eleven
have passions, but have no transgression. But Naas had transgression,
for he went in unto Eve and beguiled her and committed adultery with
her, which is a breach of the Law. And he went in also unto Adam and
used him as a boy which is also a breach of the Law.[315] Thence came
adultery and sodomy.
From that time vices bore sway over men, and the good things came from
a single source, the Father. For he, having gone up to the presence
of the Good One showed the way to those who wished to go on high; but
his having withdrawn from Edem made a source of ills to the spirit of
[Sidenote: p. 235.] the Father which is in men. Therefore Baruch was
sent to Moses, and through him spoke to the sons of Israel that he
might turn them towards the Good One. But the third[316] (angel Naas)
by means of the soul which came from Edem to Moses as also to all men,
darkened the commandments of Baruch and made them listen to his own.
Therefore the soul is arrayed against the spirit and the spirit against
the soul.[317] For the soul is Edem and the spirit Elohim, each of
them being in all mankind, both females and males. Again after this,
Baruch was sent to the Prophets, so that by their means the spirit
which dwells in man might hearken and flee from Edem and the device
of wickedness[318] as the Father Elohim had fled. And in like manner
and by the same contrivance, Naas by the soul which inhabits man along
with the spirit of the Father seduced the Prophets, and they were all
led astray and did not follow the words of Baruch which Elohim had
commanded.
[Sidenote: p. 236.] In the sequel, Elohim chose Heracles as a prophet
out of the uncircumcision and sent him that he might fight against the
twelve angels of the creation of the wicked ones. These are the twelve
contests of Heracles which he fought in their order from the first to
the last against the lion, the bear, the wild boar,[319] and the rest.
For these are the names of the nations which have been changed, they
say, by the action of the angels of the Mother. But when he seemed
to have prevailed, Omphale, who is Babel or Aphrodite[320] becomes
connected with him and leads astray Heracles, strips him of his power
(which is) the commands of Baruch which Elohim commanded, and puts
other clothes on him, her own robe, which is the power of Edem who is
below. And thus the power of prophecy[321] of Heracles and his works
become imperfect.
Last of all in the days of Herod the king, Baruch is again sent below
by Elohim and coming to Nazareth finds Jesus, the son of Joseph and
Mary,[322] a boy of twelve years old, feeding sheep, and teaches Him
all things from the beginning which came about from Edem and Elohim and
the things [Sidenote: p. 237.] which shall be hereafter, and he said:
“All the prophets before thee were led astray. Strive, therefore, O
Jesus, Son of Man, that thou be not led astray, but preach this word
unto men. And proclaim to them the things touching the Father and the
Good One, and go on high to the Good One and sit there with Elohim the
Father of us all.” And Jesus hearkened to the angel, saying: “Lord, I
will do all (these) things,” and He preached. Then Naas wished to lead
astray this one also (but Jesus did not wish to hearken to him)[323]
for He remained faithful to Baruch. Then Naas, angered because he could
not lead Him astray, made Him to be crucified. But He, leaving the body
of Edem on the Cross, went on high to the Good One. But He said to
Edem: “Woman, receive thy Son,”[324] that is the natural and earthly
man, and commending[325] the spirit into the hands of the Father went
on high to the presence of the Good One.
But the Good One is Priapus, who before anything was, was created.
Whence he is called Priapus because he previously made[326] all
things. Wherefore he says he is set up before every temple[327] being
honoured by the whole creation and in the streets bears the blossoms
of creation on his head, that is the fruits of creation of which he
is the [Sidenote: p. 238.] cause having first made the creation which
before did not exist. When therefore you hear men say that a swan came
upon Leda and begot children from her, the swan is Elohim and Leda is
Edem. And when men say that an eagle came upon Ganymede, the eagle is
Naas and Ganymede is Adam. And when they say that the gold came upon
Danae and begot children from her, the gold is Elohim and Danae is
Edem. And likewise they making parallels in the same way teach all such
words as bring in myths. When then the Prophets say: “Hear O Heaven and
give ear O Earth, the Lord has spoken,”[328] Heaven means, he says,
the spirit which is in man from Elohim and Earth the soul which is in
man (together) with the spirit, and the Lord means Baruch, and Israel,
Edem. For Edem is also called Israel the spouse of Elohim. “Israel,”
he says, “knew me not; for if she had known that I was with the Good
One, she would not have punished the spirit which is in man through the
Father’s ignorance.”