Besides, as the (Gnostics) have no appreciation of the work of the
demiurgic creator, nor for this earth, they insist that the divinity
has created for them a new earth, which is destined to receive them
when they shall have left here below, and which is the reason of the
world. But what need do they have of inhabiting the model of this world
that they pretend to hate? In any case, from where does this model
come? According to them, the model was created only when its author
inclined towards things here below. But what was the use of the model,
if its creator busied himself considerably with the world to make a
world inferior to the intelligible world which he possessed? If (the
model were created) before the world, what could have been its use? Was
it for the saved souls?[304] Why therefore were those souls not saved
(by remaining within the model)? Under this hypothesis the creation
of the model was useless. If (the model, however, was created) after
this world, its author derived it from this world, stealing the form
away from matter; the experience that the souls had acquired in their
earlier trials sufficed to teach them to seek their salvation.[305]
Last, if the (Gnostics) pretend to have, in their souls, received the
form of the world,[306] we have a new incomprehensible language.[307]