Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 16/82

Having here made this account by way of summary, and having put an end to so great a wickedness of theirs, I will proceed to what follows, calling upon God as guide and helper of our weakness, that we may be saved from this and from the aforesaid heresies and from those yet to be exposed—for the benefit of lovers of learning and of those wishing to know accurately the empty talk and incoherent entanglements that exist in the world.

For this man, having sown his own fantastic dreaming among many, calling himself a Gnostic, bound together many scorpions, so to speak, into a single chain, just as the old and vivid parable has it: that scorpions, binding themselves one to another into a chain of up to ten or more, let themselves down from a roof or housetop, and thus by guile work ruin upon men.

Thus this man, and those called Gnostics after him, became ringleaders of error; and having taken their starting points from him, each one, taught by another after the teacher, added a further error and introduced another heresy, closely joined to the former.

And thus, in succession, those called Gnostics were divided into various heresies;

having taken their starting points, as I said, from Valentinus and from those before him.

Nevertheless, let the aforesaid heresies, together with this heresy of Valentinus, having been trampled underfoot by us with the teaching of the truth, be set aside; and let us, in the power of God, examine those that follow.

Against the Secundians, with whom Epiphanes and Isidore are joined—the twelfth heresy, thirty-second in the series.

Having passed through the heresy of Valentinus, and having labored much in his thorny sowing—through, so to speak, much toil and agricultural hardship—we shall now come to the remnants of his thorny sowing and his serpentine, monstrous form, having asked the Holy Spirit from the Lord that through him he may shelter our souls with teaching that is in God and with reverent discourse, and that we may be able to draw out the poisons from those thus previously afflicted.

I will begin to speak of these in succession, who became the successor of whom among those setting out from him and teaching something other than his sowing.

Secundus, then, being one of them and wishing to think somewhat further, expounds everything in accordance with Valentinus, but sounded forth a still louder noise into the ears of those already thunderstruck.

For this man, being a follower of Valentinus as I said before, but thinking beyond Valentinus, says that the first Ogdoad is a right Tetrad and a left Tetrad, teaching thus that the one is called Light and the other Darkness;

and that the power that fell away and came into deficiency is not from the thirty Aeons, but after the thirty Aeons, being from the fruits of those Aeons that came to be lower down, after the Ogdoad—that is, the other Ogdoad.

But concerning Christ and the other doctrines, he dogmatizes entirely in the same way as Valentinus, his own supplier of venom and giver of poison.

Since not many are the things said in strange fashion by this man, I have thought it right to be content with what has already been said, for these things carry their own refutation within themselves;

nevertheless I will say a few things more about him also, lest I seem to have passed over what concerns him for want of anything to say.

For if right and left Tetrads are set up among them, something required as a middle between the right and the left will have to be found.

For whatever has right and left orders stands in the middle of its own left and right parts, and it can nowhere be either right or left, unless the distinction of each part comes about from some mediating body.

O you who have been deceived, the very midmost point, from which both left and right derive, will itself be some one thing, and it cannot be alien to that one thing—namely, the right and left that fall from it; and of necessity the whole will be led back to the One Being, above whom there is not even one thing, neither anything lower nor anything lowest, except the things created by him.

And this will be evident to those who study the truth: that God is one, Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

But if God is one, from whom are all things, then there is nothing left-hand in him, nor any other deficiency, nor anything lower, except the things created by him.

But the things after the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all well created, and have proceeded into being through him, brought forth well and ungrudgingly.

But if such another serpent shall come forth again and say to us that the right and left exist outside the One, while he himself is the very midmost, drawing to himself the right things and rejoicing in them, calling these 'right' and 'light,' but repelling the left things as alien to him and as lying on the left side—let him tell me from where he derives this geometry, so that he might properly establish an unchangeable right and left.

For among us, 'right' or 'left' is reasonably named from the members fixed in the body, in which no interchange ever occurs.

But things outside us can be at one time right, at another time left.

For to everyone facing east, the south, or midday region, will be called right, but the northern or arctic region left.

But the reverse will be found when a man turns toward the western parts: the regions will be found named oppositely;

what a moment before was right—the southern, midday region—now changes again into left, and the region that was to a man's left, whether the arctic or northern region, changes into his right.

Where, then, did the deceiver find for himself this geometry pertaining to God? O what a mass of nonsense this is, confusing everything!

He asserts that the Deficiency came into being after the thirty Aeons.

From where, then, have you grasped the nature of the Deficiency, or of the power that fell away? Tell me. For if you found it to be from an offshoot of the things above—not created but begotten, since for you and for your teacher 'created things' are defined not as created but as begotten and derived from participation, each nature receiving from another so that the things begotten in turn spring forth—then indeed, by your own reasoning, you arm yourself against yourself.

For if the deficient power and the apostasy came into being from the things above, and, so to speak, was naturally produced and sprouted forth, then it partakes of the gifts from above, since the Deficiency communes with the Pleroma and the Pleroma with the Deficiency, and the one will differ in no way from the other, both communing with each other at their boundaries.

And by every argument you will be thoroughly refuted, having the nourishment of your error from a demon's sowing—O most pitiable of all the pitiable!

But so that we might not leave out anything of what is done and said among certain people—even though in each group there are many ringleaders who boast of fabricating one thing after another beyond their own teachers—I will still continue expounding those who, while within this very heresy, say other things beyond it; I mean Epiphanes, son of Isidore, who, on the pretext of hortatory sayings, led himself down still further into a deeper abyss of misery—to tell the truth, having taken his starting points from Carpocrates, his own father according to the flesh, while also being joined to the heresy of the aforesaid Secundus, being himself one of the Secundians.

For there is great difference between each of these deceived men and the next, and, so to speak, a chaotic, rubbish-heap mixture of empty talk.

Being, on his father's side, of Cephallenian descent, and having lived for seventeen years, he brought his life to an end rather quickly, the Lord removing the wicked like thorns, providing something better for the inhabited world.

But after his death, those whom he had led astray did not desist from the plague he had inflicted.

For in Samos he is honored as a god even to this day;

for the local inhabitants, having established a sacred precinct for him, perform sacrifices and rites at the new moon; they have also set up altars to him and erected a famous shrine of the Muses in his name, which is indeed called the Museum of Epiphanes.

For the Cephallenians, having been driven into such great error, sacrifice to him and pour libations, and feast in the sacred precinct built for him, and sing hymns to him.

And because of the excellence of that man's education, both general and Platonic, the whole deception—both with respect to the heresy and with respect to the other error, I mean the one that turned the local inhabitants to idol-madness—arose from him for the aforesaid people.

This Epiphanes, then, was joined to Secundus and those around him.

For he copied his venom-spewing—I mean the superfluous talk of that harmful, serpentine corruption.

But they say that Isidore, in his hortatory writings, became the cause of his wickedness.

But whether he himself also happened to think the same things and set out from the same sources, or whether, having learned from philosophers, he too was a writer of hortatory works, we have not been able to know very clearly concerning Isidore.

Except that all these men stitch together the same sort of business.

First, then, Epiphanes himself, together with his father and patron of the heresy, Carpocrates, and those around him, legislated that men's wives should be held in common, taking his pretext from Plato's Republic while fulfilling his own desire.

From here he makes his starting point, saying that it is recorded in the Gospel that the Savior states there are three kinds of eunuchs: the one made a eunuch by men, the one who is such from birth, and the one who has willingly made himself a eunuch for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; and he says:

Those, then, who become eunuchs by necessity, and not by reason, become eunuchs in that way.

But those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven arrive at this reasoning, they say, because of what results from marriage, fearing the preoccupation involved in providing for their needs.

And they say the apostle states: 'It is better to marry than to burn'—do not cast your soul into the fire;

holding out day and night, and fearing lest you fall away from self-control.

For the soul that comes to be occupied with holding out is thereby divided from its hope.

Hold fast, then, as I have already said, to the exhortation. Bringing the matter forward, Isidore says word for word in his Ethics, concerning a quarrelsome wife: 'lest you be torn away from the grace of God, and having discharged the fire of desire, pray with a good conscience.'

But when, he says, your thanksgiving falls into petition, and you stand thereafter, not having succeeded, lest you should stumble, marry.

Then again he says: 'But if someone is young, or poor, or prone to fall—that is, weak—and does not wish to marry as reason dictates, let him not be separated from the brother.'

But procuring for himself certain shameful suspicions, the wretch puts on a show; for let him say, he says, 'I have entered into the holy things; I can suffer nothing.'

But if he has a suspicion about himself, let him say:

'Brother, lay your hand upon me, that I may not sin,' and he will receive help, both spiritual and sensible.

Let him only be willing to accomplish the good, and he will attain it.

Then again he says: 'Sometimes with the mouth we say:'

'We do not wish to sin,' yet the mind is set upon sinning.

Such a person, out of fear, does not do what he wants, lest the punishment be reckoned to him.

But humanity has certain things that are both necessary and natural, and certain things that are only natural:

It has clothing itself as necessary and natural, but the things of intercourse as natural, though not necessary.

'I have set forth these sayings,' says the one who wrote against them, 'to refute those who do not live rightly—both the Basilidians and the Carpocratians, and those of Valentinus, and those called after Epiphanes, to whom indeed Secundus, mentioned above, was joined.'

For each of them, imparting to one another—this one to that one, or that one to this—having traded off their dreadful doctrines, and differing from one another in some respect, nevertheless deposited themselves within a single heresy, so much so that they even taught the doctrine of having authority to sin because of 'perfection,' inasmuch as they are altogether by nature going to be saved, even should they now sin, on account of their innate election—although not even the forefathers of these doctrines permit one another to practice the same things.

And these too say, as they stretch themselves toward the higher and more gnostic level, concerning the first Tetrad, as follows:

There is, before all things, a Pre-Beginning, inconceivable in advance, both ineffable and unnamable, which I call Monotes (Oneness).

With this Oneness there coexists a power, which I likewise name Henotes (Unity).

This Unity and the Oneness, being the One, put forth—without emitting—an intelligible principle over all things, unbegotten and invisible, which principle the account calls Monad.

With this Monad there coexists a power consubstantial with it, which I likewise name the One.

These powers—the Oneness and the Unity, the Monad and the One—put forth the remaining projections of the aeons.

Then those who rightly wrote the truth about these things in their own works refuted them—Clement, whom some say was an Alexandrian, others an Athenian, but also the sacred Irenaeus, who, ridiculing them, brought forward in the midst of the aforesaid that tragic line, namely:

That tragic line may truly be uttered over such a calamity befalling those who have written these ridiculous things, over such coining of names and such boldness—as one who, having lost all shame, has assigned names to his own falsehood.

For in saying, 'There is a certain Pre-Beginning before all things, inconceivable in advance, which I call Oneness,' and again, 'With this Oneness there coexists a power, which I likewise name Unity,' he has most clearly confessed both that these statements are his own fabrication, and that he himself has assigned names to his fabrication—names imposed by no one else before him.

And it is evident that he himself has dared to coin these names, and that had he not been present in this life, 'the truth' would not have had a name.

Nothing, then, prevents anyone else likewise devising names on the same subject:

Then, furthermore, on this matter the same blessed Irenaeus, as we have already said, himself also uttered ridiculous words, jesting with a naming of his own devising, as a fitting match for their nonsense, fabricating, as upon certain underlying subjects, kinds of melons, cucumbers, and gourds—as would be clear to the learned from what they have previously read.

But others of them again have called the first and primordial Ogdoad by these names:

first, Pre-Beginning; then, Inconceivable; the third, Ineffable; and the fourth, Invisible.

And from the first, Pre-Beginning, was projected, in the first and fifth place, 'Beginning'; and from the second, the Inconceivable, in the second and sixth place, 'Incomprehensible'; and from the Ineffable, in the third and seventh place, 'Unnamable'; and from the Invisible, 'Unbegotten'—the Fullness of the first Ogdoad.

They wish these powers to pre-exist Bythos and Sige, so that they may appear more perfect than the perfect, and more gnostic than the Gnostics.

To whom one might justly exclaim:

For indeed concerning Bythos himself there are differing opinions among them:

For some say he is unpaired, neither male nor female nor anything at all; but others say he is male-female, attributing to him a hermaphroditic nature.

They attach to him a consort, so that a first syzygy may come to be, and from this one and from that one they may thus contrive the rest of the drama.

And there is among them a great deal of nonsensical dream-spinning that drags their mind down into deep sleep.

And why should I weary myself at great length over this, since their case is self-evident, and the refutation and overturning of them is available, from what has already been said, to everyone who wishes to hold fast to his life and not be deceived by empty myths? But let this much be said by me concerning these matters.

But passing by this heresy, I will proceed to those that follow, surveying for myself a safe path and a smooth track, so that, in going through and refuting the wickedness of these people, I may preserve both myself and my hearers, by the power of God, through the teaching of our Lord and true contemplation.

So then, having trodden underfoot, as one treads a mouse caught in a trap, this viper—which resembles many other vipers—with the sandal of the gospel, let us go on to examine those that follow.

Against the Ptolemaeans, 13; but in the sequence, 33.

Those around Secundus and the one named Epiphanes—who had bartered the pretext derived from Isidore into a doctrine of his own—are succeeded by Ptolemy, who belongs to the same heresy of the so-called Gnostics, being one of the followers of Valentinus along with certain others, but who propounds other things beyond his own teachers—whose name those who follow him proudly bear, being called Ptolemaeans.

This Ptolemy, then, and those with him, have proved even more skilled to us than their own teachers, having discovered excessive additions to their exposition.

For he devised and bestowed two consorts upon the god they call Bythos.

And these he also called dispositions: Ennoia (Thought) and Thelema (Will).

And Thought always coexisted with him, ever conceiving to project something, while Will came into being in him afterward.

For first he conceived to project something, and then, he says, he willed it.

Wherefore, from these two dispositions—or also powers, for he again calls them powers—of Thought and Will, mingled as it were with one another, the projection of the Only-Begotten and of Truth came to be according to conjunction.

These came forth as types and visible images of the Father's two invisible dispositions: of the Will, Mind (Nous); and of the Thought, Truth.

And for this reason the male became the image of the subsequently-arisen Will, while the female became the image of the unbegotten Thought.

The Will, then, became a power of Thought.

For Thought was always conceiving the projection, yet she herself was not able by herself to project what she conceived:

but when the power of the Will came upon her, then she projected what she was conceiving.

Alas for such nonsense of this vain-minded man!

For this would not be admitted, even concerning a man, by anyone of sound mind—much less concerning God.

He willed, and at the very moment of willing, that very thing which he willed is also conceived—conceiving whenever he wills, and willing whenever he conceives—being wholly Thought, wholly Will, wholly Mind, wholly Light, wholly Eye, wholly Hearing, wholly the fountain of all good things, and contained by no passion whatsoever.

For he is God, and not one who deliberates and is at a loss like Bythos, that is, like Zeus, concerning whom Ptolemy, in speaking of Bythos, imitated Homer's account.

But for a fuller refutation of the deceiver, I will next set down in order the seductive and poisonous words written by this very Ptolemy to a certain woman named Flora, so that no one may suppose that we refute the deceiver merely from hearsay, without having first encountered the corrupted teaching put forth by him:

For in addition to what has been said, he is not ashamed even to blaspheme the law of God given through Moses—and these are his very words:

The law laid down through Moses, my good sister Flora, has not been correctly grasped beforehand by many, since they have known neither the one who established it nor his precepts accurately; and I think this will become clear to you as well, once you have learned the conflicting opinions concerning it.

For some say that this law was legislated by God the Father; but others, turning from these to the opposite path, insist that it was established by the adversary, the corrupting devil—just as they also attribute to him the creation of the world, calling him the father and maker of this universe.

But these have altogether erred, being at odds with one another, and each of them, for their own part, having missed the truth concerning the matter at hand.

For it does not appear that this law was established by the perfect God and Father—since it follows that it is imperfect and in need of being completed by another, and has precepts unsuited to the nature and purpose of such a God.

Nor again, on the other hand, can one attribute a law that abolishes wrongdoing to the injustice of the Adversary.

since they also fail to perceive something of what follows, according to what was said by the Savior:

for our Savior declared that a house or a city divided against itself cannot stand.

Furthermore, the apostle says that the creation of the world is his own work, and that all things came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being—thereby stripping in advance the baseless wisdom of those who speak falsely—and that it belongs not to a corrupting god, but to one who is just and hates evil.

But this belongs to men without foresight, who take no account of the providence of the Creator, and who are maimed not only in the eye of the soul, but also in that of the body.

That these, then, have missed the truth is clear to you from what has been said.

But each of them has suffered this in his own particular way: the one, through ignorance of the God of righteousness; the other, through ignorance of the Father of all, whom he alone who knew him, having come, revealed.

It remains for us, then, counted worthy as we are of the knowledge of both of these, to declare to you and to determine precisely both the law itself—of what sort it is—and the one by whom it was established, the lawgiver, presenting the proofs of what we shall say from the words of our Savior, through which alone one may be guided without stumbling to the comprehension of the things that are.

First, then, one must learn that that whole law contained in the Pentateuch of Moses was not legislated by any single person—I mean, not by God alone—but there are certain precepts of it that were also laid down by human beings.

And the sayings of the Savior teach us that this law is divided into three parts.

They are found to have inserted certain commandments of their own.

How this is so is shown from the sayings of the Savior, as you may now learn.

For when the Savior somewhere was disputing with those who were arguing with him about the bill of divorce, which had been legislated as permissible, he said to them that Moses, because of your hardness of heart, permitted a man to put away his wife.

For from the beginning it was not so.

For God, he says, joined this couple together; and what the Lord has joined together, he said, let man not separate.

Here he shows that there is one law, that of God, which forbids a wife to be separated from her husband, and another, that of Moses, which because of hardness of heart permits this couple to be separated.

And so in this respect Moses legislates contrary to God.

For it is contrary to the command not to separate what is joined.

If, however, we examine Moses' intention, according to which he legislated this, it will be found that he did this not by his own choice, but out of necessity, because of the weakness of those for whom the law was made.

For since these people were not able to keep God's intention, in that it was not permitted them to cast out their wives—with whom some of them lived unhappily and were thereby in danger of being turned aside further into wrongdoing, and from this into ruin—Moses, wishing to cut away this unpleasantness of theirs, through which they were in danger even of perishing, legislated for them of his own accord a second law, exchanging, as the circumstance required, a lesser evil for a greater one: the law of divorce, so that, if they were unable to keep that first law, they might at least keep this one, and not be turned aside into wrongdoing and wickedness, through which utter ruin was bound to follow upon them.

This, then, is his intention, according to which he is found legislating contrary to God.

Nevertheless, that Moses himself is here shown to be other than the law of God is beyond dispute, even though we have for now demonstrated it by a single instance.

And that there are also certain traditions of the elders interwoven in the law, this too the Savior makes plain.

For God, he says, said: Honor your father and your mother, that it may go well with you.

But you, he says, have said—speaking to the elders—

'Whatever benefit you might have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' and so you have made void the law of God because of your tradition of the elders.

This Isaiah also proclaimed, saying:

This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

From these words, then, it is clearly shown that that whole law is divided into three parts.

For we find in it legislation both of Moses himself, and of the elders, and of God himself.

This division of that entire law, then, as we have here set it forth, has made plain the truth contained in it.

Again, that one part, the law of God himself, is further divided into three:

into the pure legislation, unmixed with evil, which is properly called law, which the Savior came not to destroy but to fulfill (for that which he fulfilled was not alien to him, but it needed fulfillment);

for it did not possess perfection; and into that part intertwined with what is worse and with injustice, which the Savior abolished as being alien to his own nature;

and it is divided also into the typical and symbolic part, which was legislated as an image of things spiritual and transcendent;

which the Savior transposed from what is sensible and apparent to what is spiritual and invisible.

Now the law of God, the pure part unmixed with what is worse, is the Decalogue itself, those ten words divided upon the two tablets, for the prohibition of things to be avoided and the command of things to be done; and though they possess a pure legislation, yet not possessing perfection, they were in need of the fulfillment that comes from the Savior.

the part laid down against those who first commit wrong, commanding that eye be plucked out for eye and tooth for tooth, and that murder be avenged with murder;

for the second person who commits wrong is no less wrong in doing so, differing only in order, while accomplishing the very same deed.

This precept, in another respect, was and is just, being laid down, because of the weakness of those for whom the law was given, as a departure from the pure law; but it is unsuited to the nature and goodness of the Father of the universe.

Perhaps this was fitting—or rather, it was more a matter of necessity;

for he who did not even wish there to be a single murder, in saying 'you shall not murder,' yet, by commanding that the murderer be murdered in return, legislating a second law and sanctioning two murders, he who had forbidden the one unwittingly found himself carried away by necessity.

For this reason the Son who came from him abolished this part of the law, while acknowledging that it too belonged to God—just as, among other instances, it is likewise numbered in the old dispensation, and also in what God said when he declared:

Whoever curses father or mother shall surely die.

And the typical part of it is that which is laid down as an image of things spiritual and transcendent—I mean what was legislated concerning offerings, circumcision, the sabbath, fasting, the passover, unleavened bread, and such things.

For all these, being images and symbols, were transformed once the truth was made manifest;

as to their outward appearance and their bodily performance they were abolished, but as to their spiritual sense they were taken up, the names remaining the same while the realities were changed.

For the Savior indeed commanded us to offer offerings, but not those by means of irrational animals or these incenses, but through spiritual praises and glorifications and thanksgiving, and through fellowship with and beneficence toward our neighbors.

And he wills us to be circumcised with a circumcision, but not of the bodily foreskin, but of the spiritual heart.

And also to keep the sabbath;