Against Praxeas; Against Marcion; On Baptism; Apology

In this series, then, is contained the first emanation of Æons, who are alike born, and are married, and produce offspring: there are the most dangerous fortunes of Sophia in her ardent longing for the Father, the most seasonable help of Horos, the expiation of her Enthymesis and accruing Passion, the instruction of Christ and the Holy Spirit, their tutelar reform of the Æons, the piebald ornamentation of Soter, the consubstantial retinue¹ of the angels. All that remains, according to you, is the fall of the curtain and the clapping of hands.² What remains in my opinion, however, is, that you should hear and take heed. At all events, these things are said to have been played out within the company of the Pleroma, the first scene of the tragedy. The rest of the play, however, is beyond the curtain—I mean outside of the Pleroma. And yet if it be such within the bosom of the Father, within the embrace of the guardian Horos, what must it be outside, in free space,³ where God did not exist?

For Enthymesis, or rather Achamoth—because by this inexplicable⁴ name alone must she be henceforth designated—when in company with the vicious Passion, her inseparable companion, she was expelled to places devoid of that light which is the substance of the Pleroma, even to the void and empty region of Epicurus, she becomes wretched also because of the place of her banishment. She is indeed without either form or feature, even an untimely and abortive production. Whilst she is in this plight,⁵ Christ descends from⁶ the heights, conducted by Horos, in order to impart form to the abortion, out of his own energies, the form of substance only, but not of knowledge also. Still she is left with some property. She has restored to her the odour of immortality, in order that she might, under its influence, be overcome with the desire of better things than belonged to her present plight.⁷ Having accomplished His merciful mission, not without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, Christ returns to the Pleroma. It is usual out of an abundance of things⁸ for names to be also forthcoming. Enthymesis came from action;⁹ whence Achamoth came is still a question; Sophia emanates from the Father, the Holy Spirit from an angel. She entertains a regret for Christ immediately after she had discovered her desertion by him. Therefore she hurried forth herself, in quest of the light of Him Whom she did not at all discover, as He operated in an invisible manner; for how else would she make search for His light, which was as unknown to her as He was Himself? Try, however, she did, and perhaps would have found Him, had not the self-same Horos, who had met her mother so opportunely, fallen in with the daughter quite as unseasonably, so as to exclaim at her Iao! just as we hear the cry "Porro Quirites" ("Out of the way, Romans!"), or else Fidem Cæsaris!" ("By the faith of Cæsar!"), whence (as they will have it) the name Iao comes to be found is the Scriptures.¹⁰ Being thus hindered from proceeding further, and being unable to surmount¹¹ the Cross, that is to say, Horos, because she had not yet practised herself in the part of Catullus' Laureolus,¹² and given over, as it were, to that passion of hers in a manifold and complicated mesh, she began to be afflicted with every impulse thereof, with sorrow,—because she had not accomplished her enterprise, with fear,—lest she should lose her life, even as she had lost the light, with consternation, and then with ignorance. But not as her mother (did she suffer this), for she was an Æon. Hers, however, was a worse suffering, considering her condition; for another tide of emotion still overwhelmed her, even of conversion to the Christ, by Whom she had been restored to life, and had been directed¹³ to this very conversion.

Well, now, the Pythagoreans may learn, the Stoics may know, Plato himself (may discover), whence Matter, which they will have to be unborn, derived both its origin and substance for all this pile of the world—(a mystery) which not even the renowned¹⁴ Mercurius Trismegistus, master (as he was) of all physical philosophy, thought out.¹⁵ You have just heard of "Conversion," one element in the "Passion" (we have so often mentioned). Out of this the whole life of the world,¹⁶ and even that of the Demiurge himself, our God, is said to have had its being. Again, you have heard of "sorrow" and "fear." From these all other created things¹⁷ took their beginning. For from her¹⁸ tears flowed the entire mass of waters. From this circumstance one may form an idea of the calamity¹⁹ which she encountered, so vast were the kinds of the tears wherewith she overflowed. She had salt tear-drops, she had bitter, and sweet, and warm, and cold, and bituminous, and ferruginous, and sulphurous, and even²⁰ poisonous, so that the Nonacris exuded therefrom which killed Alexander; and the river of the Lyncestæ²¹ flowed from the same source, which produces drunkenness; and the Salmacis²² was derived from the same source, which renders men effeminate. The rains of heaven Achamoth whimpered forth,²³ and we on our part are anxiously employed in saving up in our cisterns the very wails and tears of another. In like manner, from the "consternation" and "alarm" (of which we have also heard), bodily elements were derived. And yet amidst so many circumstances of solitude, in this vast prospect of destitution, she occasionally smiled at the recollection of the sight of Christ, and from this smile of joy light flashed forth. How great was this beneficence of Providence, which induced her to smile, and all that we might not linger for ever in the dark! Nor need you feel astonished how²⁴ from her joy so splendid an element²⁵ could have beamed upon the world, when from her sadness even so necessary a provision²⁶ flowed forth for man. O illuminating smile! O irrigating tear! And yet it might now have acted as some alleviation amidst the horror of her situation; for she might have shaken off all the obscurity thereof as often as she had a mind to smile, even not to be obliged to turn suppliant to those who had deserted her.²⁷

She, too, resorts to prayers, after the manner of her mother. But Christ, Who now felt a dislike to quit the Pleroma, appoints the Paraclete as his deputy. To her, therefore, he despatches Soter,²⁸ (who must be the same as Jesus, to whom the Father imparted the supreme power over the whole body of the Æons, by subjecting them all to him, so that "by him," as the apostle says, "all things were created"²⁹), with a retinue and cortege of contemporary angels, and (as one may suppose) with the dozen fasces. Hereupon Achamoth, being quite struck with the pomp of his approach, immediately covered herself with a veil, moved at first with a dutiful feeling of veneration and modesty; but afterwards she surveys him calmly, and his prolific equipage.³⁰ With such energies as she had derived from the contemplation, she meets him with the salutation, Kurie, chaire ("Hail, Lord")! Upon this, I suppose, he receives her, confirms and conforms her in knowledge, as well as cleanses³¹ her from all the outrages of Passion, without, however, utterly severing them, with an indiscriminateness like that which had happened in the casualties which befell her mother. For such vices as had become inveterate and confirmed by practice he throws together; and when he had consolidated them in one mass, he fixes them in a separate body, so as to compose the corporeal condition of Matter, extracting out of her inherent, incorporeal passion such an aptitude of nature³² as might qualify it to attain to a reciprocity of bodily substances,³³ which should emulate one another, so that a twofold condition of the substances might be arranged; one full of evil through its faults, the other susceptible of passion from conversion. This will prove to be Matter, which has set us in battle array against Hermogenes, and all others who presume to teach that God made all things out of Matter, not out of nothing.

Then Achamoth, delivered at length from all her evils, wonderful to tell³⁴ goes on and bears fruit with greater results. For warmed with the joy of so great an escape from her unhappy condition, and at the same time heated with the actual contemplation of the angelic luminaries (one is ashamed) to use such language, (but there is no other way of expressing one's meaning), she during the emotion somehow became personally inflamed with desire³⁵ towards them, and at once grew pregnant with a spiritual conception, at the very image of which the violence of her joyous transport, and the delight of her prurient excitement had imbibed and impressed upon her. She at length gave birth to an offspring, and then there arose a leash of natures,³⁶ from a triad of causes,—one material, arising from her passion; another animal, arising from her conversion; the third spiritual, which had its origin in her imagination.

Having become a better proficient³⁷ in practical conduct by the authority which, we may well suppose,³⁸ accrued to her from her three children, she determined to impart form to each of the natures. The spiritual one however, she was unable to touch, inasmuch as she was herself spiritual. For a participation in the same nature has, to a very great extent,³⁹ disqualified like and consubstantial beings from having superior power over one another. Therefore⁴⁰ she applies herself solely to the animal nature, adducing the instructions of Soter⁴¹ (for her guidance). And first of all (she does) what cannot be described and read, and heard of, without an intense horror at the blasphemy thereof: she produces this God of ours, the God of all except of the heretics, the Father and Creator⁴² and King of all things, which are inferior to him. For from him do they proceed. If, however, they proceed from him, and not rather from Achamoth, or if only secretly from her, without his perceiving her, he was impelled to all that he did, even like a puppet⁴³ which is moved from the outside. In fact, it was owing to this very ambiguity about the personal agency in the works which were done, that they coined for him the mixed name of (Motherly Father),⁴⁴ whilst his other appellations were distinctly assigned according to the conditions and positions of his works: so that they call him Father in relation to the animal substances to which they give the place of honour⁴⁵ on his right hand; whereas, in respect of the material substances which they banish⁴⁶ to his left hand, they name him Demiurgus; whilst his title King designates his authority over both classes, nay over the universe.⁴⁷

And yet there is not any agreement between the propriety of the names and that of the works, from which all the names are suggested; since all of them ought to have borne the name of her by whom the things were done, unless after all⁴⁸ it turn out that they were not made by her. For, although they say that Achamoth devised these forms in honour of the Æons, they yet⁴⁹ transfer this work to Soter as its author, when they say that he⁵⁰ operated through her, so far as to give her the very image of the invisible and unknown Father—that is, the image which was unknown and invisible to the Demiurge; whilst he⁵¹ formed this same Demiurge in imitation⁵² of Nus the son of Propator;⁵³ and whilst the archangels, who were the work of the Demiurge, resembled the other Æons. Now, when I hear of such images of the three, I ask, do you not wish me to laugh at these pictures of their most extravagant painter? At the female Achamoth, a picture of the Father? At the Demiurge, ignorant of his mother, much more so of his father? At the picture of Nus, ignorant of his father too, and the ministering angels, facsimiles of their lords? This is painting a mule from an ass, and sketching Ptolemy from Valentinus.

The Demiurge therefore, placed as he was without the limits of the Pleroma in the ignominious solitude of his eternal exile, founded a new empire—this world (of ours)—by clearing away the confusion and distinguishing the difference between the two substances which severally constituted it,⁵⁴ the animal and the material. Out of incorporeal (elements) he constructs bodies, heavy, light, erect⁵⁵ and stooping, celestial and terrene. He then completes the sevenfold stages of heaven itself, with his own throne above all. Whence he had the additional name of Sabbatum from the hebdomadal nature of his abode; his mother Achamoth, too, had the title Ogdoada, after the precedent of the primeval Ogdoad.⁵⁶ These heavens, however, they consider to be intelligent,⁵⁷ and sometimes they make angels of them, as indeed they do of the Demiurge himself; as also (they call) Paradise the fourth archangel, because they fix it above the third heaven, of the power of which Adam partook, when he sojourned there amidst its fleecy clouds⁵⁸ and shrubs.⁵⁹ Ptolemy remembered perfectly well the prattle of his boyhood,⁶⁰ that apples grew in the sea, and fishes on the tree; after the same fashion, he assumed that nut-trees flourished in the skies. The Demiurge does his work in ignorance, and therefore perhaps he is unaware that trees ought to be planted only on the ground. His mother, of course, knew all about it: how is it, then, that she did not suggest the fact, since she was actually executing her own operation? But whilst building up so vast an edifice for her son by means of those works, which proclaim him at once to be father, god and, king before the conceits of the Valentinians, why she refused to let them be known to even him,⁶¹ is a question which I shall ask afterwards.

Meanwhile you must believe⁶² that Sophia has the surnames of earth and of Mother—"Mother-Earth," of course—and (what may excite your laughter still more heartily) even Holy Spirit. In this way they have conferred all honour on that female, I suppose even a beard, not to say other things. Besides,⁶³ the Demiurge had so little mastery over things,⁶⁴ on the score,⁶⁵ you must know,⁶⁶ of his inability to approach spiritual essences, (constituted as he was) of animal elements, that, imagining himself to be the only being, he uttered this soliloquy: "I am God, and beside me there is none else."⁶⁷ But for all that, he at least was aware that he had not himself existed before. He understood, therefore, that he had been created, and that there must be a creator of a creature of some sort or other. How happens it, then, that he seemed to himself to be the only being, notwithstanding his uncertainty, and although he had, at any rate, some suspicion of the existence of some creator?

The odium felt amongst them⁶⁸ against the devil is the more excusable,⁶⁹ even because the peculiarly sordid character of his origin justifies it.⁷⁰ For he is supposed by them to have had his origin in that criminal excess⁷¹ of her⁷² sorrow, from which they also derive the birth of the angels, and demons, and all the wicked spirits. Yet they affirm that the devil is the work of the Demiurge, and they call him Munditenens⁷³ (Ruler of the World), and maintain that, as he is of a spiritual nature, he has a better knowledge of the things above than the Demiurge, an animal being. He deserves from them the pre-eminence which all heresies provide him with.

Their most eminent powers, moreover, they confine within the following limits, as in a citadel. In the most elevated of all summits presides the tricenary Pleroma,⁷⁴ Horos marking off its boundary line. Beneath it, Achamoth occupies the intermediate space for her abode,⁷⁵ treading down her son. For under her comes the Demiurge in his own Hebdomad, or rather the Devil, sojourning in this world in common with ourselves, formed, as has been said above, of the same elements and the same body, out of the most profitable calamities of Sophia; inasmuch as, (if it had not been for these,) our spirit would have had no space for inhaling and ejecting⁷⁶ air—that delicate vest of all corporeal creatures, that revealer of all colours, that instrument of the seasons—if the sadness of Sophia had not filtered it, just as her fear did the animal existence, and her conversion the Demiurge himself. Into all these elements and bodies fire was fanned. Now, since they have not as yet explained to us the original sensation of this⁷⁷ in Sophia, I will on my own responsibility⁷⁸ conjecture that its spark was struck out of the delicate emotions⁷⁹ of her (feverish grief). For you may be quite sure that, amidst all her vexations, she must have had a good deal of fever.⁸⁰

Such being their conceits respecting God, or, if you like,⁸¹ the gods, of what sort are their figments concerning man? For, after he had made the world, the Demiurge turns his hands to man, and chooses for him as his substance not any portion of "the dry land," as they say, of which alone we have any knowledge (although it was, at that time, not yet dried by the waters becoming separated from the earthy residuum, and only afterwards became dry), but of the invisible substance of that matter, which philosophy indeed dreams of, from its fluid and fusible composition, the origin of which I am unable to imagine, because it exists nowhere. Now, since fluidity and fusibility are qualities of liquid matter, and since everything liquid flowed from Sophia's tears, we must, as a necessary conclusion, believe that muddy earth is constituted of Sophia's eye-rheums and viscid discharges,⁸² which are just as much the dregs of tears as mud is the sediment of waters. Thus does the Demiurge mould man as a potter does his clay, and animates him with his own breath. Made after his image and likeness, he will therefore be both material and animal. A fourfold being! For in respect of his "image," he must be deemed clayey,⁸³ that is to say, material, although the Demiurge is not composed of matter; but as to his "likeness," he is animal, for such, too, is the Demiurge. You have two (of his constituent elements). Moreover, a coating of flesh was, as they allege, afterwards placed over the clayey substratum, and it is this tunic of skin which is susceptible of sensation.

In Achamoth, moreover, there was inherent a certain property of a spiritual germ, of her mother Sophia's substance; and Achamoth herself had carefully severed off (the same quality), and implanted it in her son the Demiurge, although he was actually unconscious of it. It is for you to imagine⁸⁴ the industry of this clandestine arrangement. For to this end had she deposited and concealed (this germ), that, whenever the Demiurge came to impart life to Adam by his inbreathing, he might at the same time draw off from the vital principle⁸⁵ the spiritual seed, and, as by a pipe, inject it into the clayey nature; in order that, being then fecundated in the material body as in a womb, and having fully grown there, it might be found fit for one day receiving the perfect Word.⁸⁶ When, therefore, the Demiurge commits to Adam the transmission of his own vital principle,⁸⁷ the spiritual man lay hid, although inserted by his breath, and at the same time introduced into the body, because the Demiurge knew no more about his mother's seed than about herself. To this seed they give the name of Ecclesia (the Church), the mirror of the church above, and the perfection⁸⁸ of man; tracing this perfection from Achamoth, just as they do the animal nature from the Demiurge, the clayey material of the body (they derive) from the primordial substance,⁸⁹ the flesh from Matter. So that you have a new Geryon here, only a fourfold (rather than a threefold) monster.

In like manner they assign to each of them a separate end.⁹⁰ To the material, that is to say the carnal (nature), which they also call "the left-handed," they assign undoubted destruction; to the animal (nature), which they also call "the right-handed," a doubtful issue, inasmuch as it oscillates between the material and the spiritual, and is sure to fall at last on the side to which it has mainly gravitated. As regards the spiritual, however, (they say) that it enters into the formation of the animal, in order that it may be educated in company with it and be disciplined by repeated intercourse with it. For the animal (nature) was in want of training even by the senses: for this purpose, accordingly, was the whole structure of the world provided; for this purpose also did Soter (the Saviour) present Himself in the world—even for the salvation of the animal (nature). By yet another arrangement they will have it that He, in some prodigious way,⁹¹ clothed Himself with the primary portions⁹² of those substances, the whole of which He was going to restore to salvation; in such wise that He assumed the spiritual nature from Achamoth, whilst He derived the animal (being), Christ, afterwards from the Demiurge; His corporal substance, however, which was constructed of an animal nature (only with wonderful and indescribable skill), He wore for a dispensational purpose, in order that He might, in spite of His own unwillingness,⁹³ be capable of meeting persons, and of being seen and touched by them, and even of dying. But there was nothing material assumed by Him, inasmuch as that was incapable of salvation. As if He could possibly have been more required by any others than by those who were in want of salvation! And all this, in order that by severing the condition of our flesh from Christ they may also deprive it of the hope of salvation!

I now adduce⁹⁴ (what they say) concerning Christ, upon whom some of them engraft Jesus with so much licence, that they foist into Him a spiritual seed together with an animal inflatus. Indeed, I will not undertake to describe⁹⁵ these incongruous crammings,⁹⁶ which they have contrived in relation both to their men and their gods. Even the Demiurge has a Christ of His own—His natural Son. An animal, in short, produced by Himself, proclaimed by the prophets—His position being one which must be decided by prepositions; in other words, He was produced by means of a virgin, rather than of a virgin! On the ground that, having descended into the virgin rather in the manner of a passage through her than of a birth by her, He came into existence through her, not of her—not experiencing a mother in her, but nothing more than a way. Upon this same Christ, therefore (so they say), Jesus descended in the sacrament of baptism, in the likeness of a dove. Moreover, there was even in Christ accruing from Achamoth the condiment of a spiritual seed, in order of course to prevent the corruption of all the other stuffing.⁹⁷ For after the precedent of the principal Tetrad, they guard him with four substances—the spiritual one of Achamoth, the animal one of the Demiurge, the corporeal one, which cannot be described, and that of Soter, or, in other phrase, the columbine.⁹⁸ As for Soter (Jesus), he remained in Christ to the last, impassible, incapable of injury, incapable of apprehension. By and by, when it came to a question of capture, he departed from him during the examination before Pilate. In like manner, his mother's seed did not admit of being injured, being equally exempt from all manner of outrage,⁹⁹ and being undiscovered even by the Demiurge himself. The animal and carnal Christ, however, does suffer after the fashion¹⁰⁰ of the superior Christ, who, for the purpose of producing Achamoth, had been stretched upon the cross, that is, Horos, in a substantial though not a cognizable¹⁰¹ form. In this manner do they reduce all things to mere images—Christians themselves being indeed nothing but imaginary beings!

Meanwhile the Demiurge, being still ignorant of everything, although he will actually have to make some announcement himself by the prophets, but is quite incapable of even this part of his duty (because they divide authority over the prophets¹⁰² between Achamoth, the Seed, and the Demiurge), no sooner heard of the advent of Soter (Saviour) than he runs to him with haste and joy, with all his might, like the centurion in the Gospel.¹⁰³ And being enlightened by him on all points, he learns from him also of his own prospect how that he is to succeed to his mother's place. Being thenceforth free from all care, he carries on the administration of this world, mainly under the plea of protecting the church, for as long a time as may be necessary and proper.

I will now collect from different sources, by way of conclusion, what they affirm concerning the dispensation¹⁰⁴ of the whole human race. Having at first stated their views as to man's threefold nature—which was, however, united in one¹⁰⁵ in the case of Adam—they then proceed after him to divide it (into three) with their especial characteristics, finding opportunity for such distinction in the posterity of Adam himself, in which occurs a threefold division as to moral differences. Cain and Abel, and Seth, who were in a certain sense the sources of the human race, become the fountain-heads of just as many qualities¹⁰⁶ of nature and essential character.¹⁰⁷ The material nature,¹⁰⁸ which had become reprobate for salvation, they assign to Cain; the animal nature, which was poised between divergent hopes, they find¹⁰⁹ in Abel; the spiritual, preordained for certain salvation, they store up¹¹⁰ in Seth. In this way also they make a twofold distinction among souls, as to their property of good and evil—according to the material condition derived from Cain, or the animal from Abel. Men's spiritual state they derive over and above the other conditions,¹¹¹ from Seth adventitiously,¹¹² not in the way of nature, but of grace,¹¹³ in such wise that Achamoth infuses it¹¹⁴ among superior beings like rain¹¹⁵ into good souls, that is, those who are enrolled in the animal class. Whereas the material class—in other words, those which are bad souls—they say, never receive the blessings of salvation;¹¹⁶ for that nature they have pronounced to be incapable of any change or reform in its natural condition.¹¹⁷ This grain, then, of spiritual seed is modest and very small when cast from her hand, but under her instruction¹¹⁸ increases and advances into full conviction, as we have already said;¹¹⁹ and the souls, on this very account, so much excelled all others, that the Demiurge, even then in his ignorance, held them in great esteem. For it was from their list that he had been accustomed to select men for kings and for priests; and these even now, if they have once attained to a full and complete knowledge of these foolish conceits of theirs,¹²⁰ since they are already naturalized in the fraternal bond of the spiritual state, will obtain a sure salvation, nay, one which is on all accounts their due.

For this reason it is that they neither regard works¹²¹ as necessary for themselves, nor do they observe any of the calls of duty, eluding even the necessity of martyrdom on any pretence which may suit their pleasure. For this rule, (they say), is enjoined upon the animal seed, in order that the salvation, which we do not possess by any privilege of our state,¹²² we may work out by right¹²³ of our conduct. Upon us, who are of an imperfect nature,¹²⁴ is imprinted the mark of this (animal) seed, because we are reckoned as sprung from the loves of Theletus,¹²⁵ and consequently as an abortion, just as their mother was. But woe to us indeed, should we in any point transgress the yoke of discipline, should we grow dull in the works of holiness and justice, should we desire to make our confession anywhere else, I know not where, and not before the powers of this world at the tribunals of the chief magistrates!¹²⁶ As for them, however, they may prove their nobility by the dissoluteness¹²⁷ of their life and their diligence¹²⁸ in sin, since Achamoth fawns on them as her own; for she, too, found sin no unprofitable pursuit. Now it is held amongst them, that, for the purpose of honouring the celestial marriages,¹²⁹ it is necessary to contemplate and celebrate the mystery always by cleaving to a companion, that, is to a woman; otherwise (they account any man) degenerate, and a bastard¹³⁰ to the truth, who spends his life in the world without loving a woman or uniting himself to her. Then what is to become of the eunuchs whom we see amongst them?

It remains that we say something about the end of the world,¹³¹ and the dispensing of reward. As soon as Achamoth has completed the full harvest of her seed, and has then proceeded to gather it into her garner, or, after it has been taken to the mill and ground to flour, has hidden it in the kneading-trough with yeast until the whole be leavened, then shall the end speedily come.¹³² Then, to begin with, Achamoth herself removes from the middle region,¹³³ from the second stage to the highest, since she is restored to the Pleroma: she is immediately received by that paragon of perfection¹³⁴ Soter, as her spouse of course, and they two afterwards consummate¹³⁵ new nuptials. This must be the spouse of the Scripture,¹³⁶ the Pleroma of espousals (for you might suppose that the Julian laws¹³⁷ were interposing, since there are these migrations from place to place). In like manner, the Demiurge, too, will then change the scene of his abode from the celestial Hebdomad¹³⁸ to the higher regions, to his mother's now vacant saloon¹³⁹ —by this time knowing her, without however seeing her. (A happy coincidence!) For if he had caught a glance of her, he would have preferred never to have known her.