BOOK VI SIMON MAGUS, VALENTINUS, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS (continued 2)
Francis Legge translation
54.[282] But they declare that first the four elements which they say are fire, water, earth (and) air, were made through the Mother and projected as an image of the Tetrad on high. And reckoning in with them their energies, such as heat, cold, moisture, and dryness they exactly reflect the Ogdoad. Next, they enumerate ten powers, thus: Seven circular bodies which they also call heavens, then a circle encompassing these which they call the Eighth Heaven and besides these, the Sun and Moon.[283] And these making up the number 10, they declare to be the image of the invisible decad which is from Logos and Zoe. And (they say) that the dodecad is revealed through the circle called the Zodiac. For they declare that the twelve most evident signs shadow forth the dodecad which is the daughter of Anthropos and p. 330. Ecclesia. And since they say the highest heaven has been linked to the ascension of the universals, the swiftest in existence, which (heaven) weighs down upon the sphere itself, and counterbalances by its own weight the swiftness of the others, so that in thirty years it completes the cycle from sign to sign—this they declare to be the image of Horos encircling their thirty-named Mother.[284]
Again the Moon traversing the heavens completely in 30 days, typifies (they say) by these days the number of the Aeons. And the Sun completing his journey and terminating his cyclical return to his former place in 12 months shows forth the Dodecad. And that the days themselves, since they are measured by 12 hours, are a type of the mighty[285] Ogdoad. And also that the perimeter of the Zodiacal circle has 360 degrees and that each Zodiacal sign has 30. Thus by means of the circle, they say, the p. 331. image of the connection of the 12 with the 30 is observed. And again also they imagine that the earth is divided into 12 climates, and that each several climate receives a single power from the heavens immediately above it[286] and produces children of the same essence with the power sending down [this influence] by emanation [which is they say] a type of the Dodecad on high.
55. And besides this, they say that the Demiurge of the Ogdoad on high,[287] wishing to imitate the Boundless and Everlasting and Unconfined and Timeless One and not being able to form a model of His stability and permanence, because he was himself the fruit of the Hysterema, was forced to place in it for rendering it eternal, times and seasons and numbers, thinking that by the multitude of times he was imitating the Boundless One. But they declare that in this the truth having escaped him, he followed the false; and that therefore when the times are fulfilled, his work will be dissolved.[288]
p. 332. 56. These things, then, those who are from the school of Valentinus declare concerning Creation and the Universe, every time producing something newer[289] (than the last). And they consider this to be fructification, if any one similarly discovering something greater appears to work wonders. And finding in each case from the Scriptures something accordant with the aforesaid numbers, they prate of Moses and the Prophets, imagining them to declare allegorically the dimensions of the Aeons. Which things it does not seem to me expedient to explain as they are senseless and inconsistent, and already the blessed elder Irenæus has marvellously and painfully refuted their doctrines. From whom also [we have taken] their so-called discoveries and have shown that they, having appropriated these things from (the) trifling[290] of the Pythagorean philosophy and the astrologies, accuse Christ of having handed them down. But since I consider that their senseless doctrines have been sufficiently set forth, and that it has been already proved whose disciples Marcus and Colarbasus[291] by becoming the successors of the school of Valentinus (really) are, let us see also what Basilides says.[292]
FOOTNOTES
p. 333.