12. How could this newly formed image (the demiurgic creator) have
undertaken to create by memory of the things he knew? As he did not
exist before, he could not have known anything, any more than the
mother (Wisdom) which is attributed to him. Besides, it is quite
surprising that, though the (Gnostics) did not descend upon this world
as images of souls, but as veritable, genuine souls, nevertheless
hardly one or two of them succeeds in detaching themselves from the
(sense) world and by gathering together their memories, to remember
some of the things they previously knew, while this image (the
demiurgical creator), as well as his mother (Wisdom), which is a
material image, was capable of conceiving intelligible entities in a
feeble manner, indeed, as say the Gnostics, but after all from her
very birth. Not only did she conceive intelligible things, and formed
an idea of the sense-world from the intelligible world, but she also
discovered with what elements she was to produce the sense-world. Why
did she first create the fire? Doubtless because she judged she would
begin thereby; for why did she not begin with some other element? If
she could produce fire because she had the conception thereof, why,
as she had the conception of the world--as she must have begun by a
conception of the totality--did she not create the whole at one single
stroke[363]? Indeed, this conception of the world embraced all its
parts. It would also have been more natural, for the demiurgical
creator should not have acted like a workman, as all the arts are
posterior to nature and to the creation of the world. Even to-day, we
do not see the natures[364] when they beget individuals, first produce
the fire, then the other elements successively, and finally mingle
them. On the contrary, the outline and organization of the entire
organism are formed at once in the germ born at the monthly periods in
the womb of the mother. Why then, in creation, should matter not have
been organized at one stroke by the type of the world, a type that
must have contained fire, earth, and all the rest of them? Perhaps the
(Gnostics) would have thus conceived of the creation of the world, if
(instead of an image) they had had in their system a genuine Soul. But
their demiurgic creator could not have proceeded thus. To conceive of
the greatness, and especially of the dimension of the heavens, of the
obliquity of the zodiac, of the course of the stars, the form of the
earth, and to understand the reason of each of these things, would not
have been the work of an image, but rather of a power that proceeded
from the better principles, as the (Gnostics) in spite of themselves
acknowledge.
THE NECESSITY OF THE ILLUMINATION OF THE DARKNESS MUST HAVE BEEN
ETERNAL.
Indeed, if we examine attentively that in which this illumination of
the darkness consists, the (Gnostics) may be led to a recognition
of the true principles of the world. Why was the production of this
illumination of the darkness necessary, if its existence was not
absolutely unavoidable? This necessity (of an illumination of the
darkness) was either in conformity with, or in opposition to nature. If
it conformed thereto, it must have been so from all time; if it were
contrary thereto, something contrary to nature would have happened to
the divine powers, and evil would be prior to the world. Then it would
no longer be the world that was the cause of evil (as the Gnostics
claim), but the divine powers. The world is not the principle of evil
for the soul, but it is the soul that is the principle of evil for the
world. Ascending from cause to cause, reason will relate this world to
the primary principles.