BOOK V THE OPHITE HERESIES

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]

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 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 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]

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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:—

p. 153.Not of the suitors of Penelope, he says, O unhappy ones, but of those awakened from sleep and recalled to consciousness

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.

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 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

still meaning the souls as the poet shows, saying figuratively:—

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.

that is, he led them,

p. 156.that is, he says, into eternal countries remote from all evil. For whence, says he, did they come?

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, 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), 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:—

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, 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:—

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]

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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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:—

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 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.

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 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:—

These, he says, are the Lesser Mysteries, those of fleshly generation, after being initiated into which men ought to 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 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 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 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:—

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 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 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, 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.

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 p. 182. mysteries of their error thus:—[178]

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 image were born Paris, Narcissus, Ganymede, Endymion, p. 197. 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 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 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:—

But not only do the poets say this, he says, but also the wisest of the Greeks, whereof Heraclitus is one, who says, 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, 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 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 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,

This it is concerning which ignorance speaks:—

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

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] 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 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 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 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.

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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.

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]

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). 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:—

that is each of the threefold divisions has taken power. 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:—

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 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 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.

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 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 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 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, 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.