Neither will we controvert an assertion which overtops all their others
in absurdity--we use this term for lack of a stronger. Here it is:
"The Soul and another Wisdom inclined downwards towards things here
below, either because the Soul first inclined downwards spontaneously,
or because she was misled by Wisdom; or because (in Gnostic view),
Soul and Wisdom were identical. The other souls descended here below
together (with the Soul), as well as the "members of Wisdom," and
entered into bodies, probably human. Nevertheless the Soul, on account
of which the other soul descended here below, did not herself descend.
She did not incline, so to speak, but only illuminated the darkness.
From this illumination was born in matter an image (Wisdom, the image
of the Soul). Later was formed (the demiurgic creator, called) an image
of the image, by means of matter or materiality, or of a principle by
(Gnostics) designated by another name (the "Fruit of the fall")--for
they make use of many other names, for the purpose of increasing
obscurity. This is how they derive their demiurgic creator. They also
suppose that this demiurgic creator separated himself from his mother,
Wisdom, and from him they deduce the whole world even to the extremity
of the images." The perpetration of such assertions amounts to a bitter
sarcasm of the power that created the world.