Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 19/82

for he speaks of sun and moon, stars and seasons, years and sea-monsters, and further fish and creeping things, birds and four-footed beasts, wild beasts, and, in the twelfth place, over and above all these, man.

In this way, they teach, the Triacontad was spoken by the Spirit through Moses.

But moreover, they say, the molded man also has in himself, after the image of the power above, the power from the one source; and this is established in the region of the brain, from which flow four powers named after the image of the Tetrad above — the first sight, the second hearing, the third smell, and the fourth taste.

And the Ogdoad, they say, is thus indicated through man:

he has two ears and as many eyes, and also two nostrils, and a twofold taste, of bitter and of sweet.

And they teach that the whole man bears the entire image of the Triacontad in this way:

in his hands, through the fingers, he bears the Decad, while in the whole body, divided into twelve members, he bears the Dodecad.

And they divide it just as, among them, the body of Truth has been divided, concerning which we have spoken before.

The Ogdoad, then, being unspeakable and invisible, is understood to be hidden in the inward parts.

Again, they assert that the sun, the great luminary, came into being on the fourth day, on account of the number of the Tetrad.

And the courts of the tabernacle constructed by Moses, made of fine linen and blue and purple and scarlet, have, they say, displayed among them this same image.

And they determine that the priest's ankle-length robe, adorned with four rows of precious stones, signifies the Tetrad;

and whatever such things are found altogether in the Scriptures that can be reduced to the number four, they say came about on account of their Tetrad.

They say that man was formed on the eighth day;

for at one time they wish him to have come into being on the sixth day, at another on the eighth — unless indeed they will say that the earthy man was formed on the sixth day, but the fleshly man on the eighth;

for these things are distinguished among them.

But some of them wish there to be yet another — the man made male-female after the image and likeness of God, and that this is the spiritual man — and another, the one formed from the earth.

And they say that the dispensation of the ark in the flood, in which eight persons were saved, most manifestly indicates the saving Ogdoad.

And furthermore, that circumcision also, taking place on the eighth day, shows forth the excision of the Ogdoad above.

And, simply put, whatever is found in the Scriptures that can be brought under the number eight, they say fulfills the mystery of the Ogdoad.

But they also say that the Decad is signified through the ten nations which God promised to give to Abraham for a possession.

And that the dispensation concerning Sarah — how after ten years she gave him her own maidservant Hagar, that he might have children by her — shows the same thing.

And the servant sent by Abraham to Rebecca, who at the well gave her ten golden bracelets, and her brothers who detained her for ten days; and further, Rehoboam who received the ten scepters, and the ten curtains of the tabernacle, and the pillars ten cubits high, and the ten sons of Jacob first sent down into Egypt to buy grain, and the ten apostles to whom the Lord appeared after his resurrection, Thomas not being present — all these, according to them, depicted the invisible Decad.

As for the Dodecad, concerning which they wish the mystery of the Passion of the Deficiency to have occurred, and out of which passion the visible things were made ready — they say it is set forth conspicuously and manifestly everywhere: as the twelve sons of Jacob, from whom also came the twelve tribes; and the embroidered breastplate having twelve stones, and the twelve bells; and the twelve stones set by Moses beneath the mountain; and likewise those set by Joshua in the river and others on the far side; and those who bore the ark of the covenant; and those set up by Elijah at the whole burnt offering of the calf; and the number of the apostles; and, simply put, everything whatsoever that preserves the number twelve — all this, they say, characterizes their Dodecad.

But I have thought it necessary to add to these things also whatever, concerning their Forefather — who was unknown to all before the coming of Christ — they attempt to persuade by selecting texts from the Scriptures, in order to show that our Lord was proclaiming a father other than the maker of this universe, whom, as we said before, they impiously assert to be the fruit of the Deficiency.

Thus the prophet Isaiah's saying, 'But Israel did not know me, and my people did not understand me,' they twist into meaning that he spoke of ignorance of the invisible Bythos.

And what was said through Hosea, 'There is no truth in them, nor knowledge of God,' they force to point to the same thing, as well as: 'There is none that understands, or that seeks after God;'

'They have all turned aside, together they have become unprofitable' — this they assign to the ignorance of Bythos.

For, falsely asserting that the maker was seen by the prophets, they wish the written word, 'No one shall see God and live,' to have been spoken concerning the invisible Greatness that is unknown to all.

Now that the saying 'No one shall see God' was spoken concerning the invisible Father and maker of all things is plain to all of us;

for these words are sealed up, until those who understand shall understand, and the white ones shall be made white;

and they boast that they themselves are the white ones and those who understand well.

Besides these, they bring forward a countless multitude of apocryphal and spurious writings, which they themselves have fabricated, to astonish the foolish and those who do not know the writings of the truth.

And to this end they also adduce that fraudulent tale, how, when the Lord was a child and learning his letters, his teacher said to him, as is customary:

'Say alpha' — and he answered, 'Alpha.'

And again, when the teacher bid him say 'beta,' the Lord answered:

'You tell me first what alpha is, and then I will tell you what beta is.'

And this they interpret as meaning that he alone knew the Unknown, which he revealed under the figure of alpha.

And some of the things found in the Gospel they twist into this same character, as, for instance, his answer to his mother when he was twelve years old: 'Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?' — they say he was there proclaiming to them a father whom they did not know;

and that for this reason he sent forth the disciples to the twelve tribes, proclaiming to them the God unknown to them.

And to the man who said to him, 'Good Teacher,' they say he confessed the truly good God when he said, 'Why do you call me good? There is One who is good, the Father in the heavens;'

and they say that 'heavens' here means the Aeons.

And they interpret that, by not answering those who said to him, 'By what power do you do this?' but rather confounding them by his counter-question, he showed the ineffability of the Father precisely by not speaking of it.

But also in his saying, 'I have often desired to hear one of these words, and I had no one to tell me' — this, they say, indicates, through the word 'one,' the truly One God, whom they had not known.

Further, when he looked upon Jerusalem and wept over it, and said, 'If only you had known, even you, in this day, the things that make for peace! But they are hidden from you' — through the word 'hidden' he had made known the hiddenness of Bythos.

And again, in saying, 'Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and learn from me,' he proclaimed the Father of truth.

For, they say, what they did not know, this he promised to teach them.

And as proof of these supreme matters, and as, so to speak, the crowning point of their argument, they adduce these sayings: 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding, and have revealed them to babes.'

'Yes, my Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in your sight.'

'All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one has known the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father, and he to whomever the Son shall reveal him.'

For in these words, they say, he plainly showed that the father of truth invented by them had never before been known by anyone at all before his coming; and they wish to establish that, whereas the maker and creator has always been known by all, the Lord spoke these words concerning the father unknown to all, whom they themselves proclaim.

...to be also incomprehensible, inasmuch as she is the Mother of the uncontainable and invisible beings, and for this reason is also without fixed form; so that it is not possible to declare her simply, nor in a single account, because each one of them, according to his own wish, hands her down differently.

For as many as are the initiators into this opinion, so many also are the redemptions.

And that this system has been introduced by Satan for the denial of baptism, of regeneration unto God, and for the casting away of all faith — this we shall declare, refuting them, in the proper place.

They say that this is necessary for those who have received perfect knowledge, so that they may be regenerated into the power that is above all things.

For otherwise it is impossible to enter within the Pleroma, since this, according to them, is what leads down into the depth of the Abyss (Bythos).

For they hold that the baptism of the visible Jesus is for the forgiveness of sins, but the redemption of the Christ who descended into him is for perfection; and they maintain that the one is psychic and the other spiritual, and that baptism was proclaimed by John unto repentance, while redemption was brought by Christ unto perfection.

And this is what he means when he says, 'I have another baptism to be baptized with, and I am greatly pressed until it is accomplished.'

But they say also that, when the sons of Zebedee had their mother ask that they might sit on his right and on his left with him in the kingdom, the Lord added this redemption when he said, 'Can you be baptized with the baptism with which I am about to be baptized?' And they explicitly assert that Paul disclosed the redemption in Christ Jesus many times, and that this is the very thing which is handed down by them in various and discordant ways.

For some of them construct a bridal chamber and perform a mystic rite with certain invocations over those being initiated, claiming that what is done by them is a spiritual marriage in the likeness of the unions above;

but others lead them to water and, in baptizing, pronounce these words: 'Into the name of the unknown Father of all, into Truth the mother of all things, into him who descended into Jesus, unto the union and redemption and communion of the powers.'

But others pronounce certain Hebrew names, so as to strike still greater awe into those being initiated, as follows:

Basema chamosse baaianoora mistadia rhouada kousta babophor kalachthei

And the interpretation of these words is as follows:

'Above every power of the Father I call upon that which is named light, and good spirit, and life, because you have reigned in the body.'

But others again pronounce the redemption formula as follows:

'The name that is hidden from every deity and lordship and truth, which Jesus the Nazarene put on in the zones of the light of Christ, of Christ who lives through the Holy Spirit, unto angelic redemption — the name of the restoration.'

Messia oupharegna, mempsai men chal daian, mosomē daea, akphar nepseu oua, Iēsou Nazaria

And the interpretation of these words also is as follows:

'I do not divide the spirit, the heart, and the supracelestial, compassionate power;'

'may I enjoy your name, O Savior of truth.'

These words are pronounced by those performing the rite, and the one being initiated responds:

'I have been established, and I have been redeemed, and I redeem my soul from this age and from all things that belong to it, in the name of Iao, who redeemed his own soul unto redemption in the living Christ.'

Then those present say in response:

'Peace be upon all on whom this name has rested.'

Then they anoint the one who has been initiated with the sap that comes from balsam.

For they say that this ointment is a type of the fragrance that is above all things.

But some of them say that leading a person to water is superfluous; instead, mixing oil and water together, and with certain invocations similar to those we have already mentioned, they pour it upon the head of those being initiated, and they wish this to be the redemption.

But others, rejecting all these things, say that the mystery of the ineffable and invisible power ought not to be performed by means of visible and corruptible creatures, nor that of the inconceivable and incorporeal realities by means of sensible and bodily things.

Rather, they say, the perfect redemption is itself the full knowledge of the ineffable Greatness;

for since Deficiency and passion came into being through ignorance, the whole constitution that arose out of ignorance is dissolved through knowledge, so that knowledge is the redemption of the inner man.

And it is neither bodily — for the body is corruptible — nor psychic, since the soul too is from the Deficiency and is, as it were, a dwelling place of the spirit;

therefore the redemption too must be spiritual.

For, they say, the inner spiritual man is redeemed through knowledge, and they are content with the full knowledge of all things;

and this, they say, is the true redemption.

The blessed elder Irenaeus made this entire precise investigation, setting forth in order the whole of their falsified teaching.

Wherefore indeed, as I have already made clear, being content with what was diligently worked out by him, we have set forth everything word for word, just as it is found in him.

And they will be refuted out of the very words spoken by this holy man in opposition to their wickedness.

For we believe, as the truth altogether shows and sound reasoning suggests, and as is in harmony with the rule of piety, with the Law and the Prophets, and with the patriarchs from ancient times in due sequence, and with the teaching of the Savior himself, the Lord — his apostles clearly teaching us to confess one God the Father, Almighty over all, and our Lord Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit, one holy uncreated Trinity, all other things having come into being out of non-being after the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Since these things have been clearly confessed and believed by all the aforementioned holy prophets, evangelists, and apostles, no deceitful, dice-playing invention could withstand the ray of truth, just as we have often said at length in our refutation directed against each heresy;

so that this charlatan too, this death-dealer, is entirely exposed as having, just like those mentioned before, stitched together and contrived these great things for the sake of display and idle curiosity.

But passing over the wickedness of this man too, and of those called Marcosians who come from him, let us hasten on, O beloved, to what follows, again searching out their roots and destroying the bitterness of their fruits, and demonstrating their overthrow and everything concerning them — not to the harm of our readers, but as a deterrent, so that they may not draw near to any of the heresies already mentioned or to those that come after, but rather, having read what is written by them and come to know what is chanted among them, and having condemned the error and serpent-like wickedness of each of them, may flee from them and, as I have said, not draw near.

For those who have written of it say there is a certain viper called the dipsas, which appears to inflict such harm in the following manner:

For in certain places, where there are hollows in the rocks, or small trickles pouring down from the rocks into some receptacle, this same dipsas, finding water and drinking, injects its venom, after drinking, into the aforesaid standing waters, so that every animal that approaches and, having drunk its fill, seems to benefit from partaking, immediately afterward, upon receiving the venom of the dipsas from that reservoir of water, collapses and dies.

Should this same dipsas strike someone, then, because of the exceedingly burning venom within it, the suffering of the pain provokes in him a craving for thirst and drink, and continually urges him ever to keep drinking and stirs him to drink.

And the one who has been bitten thinks he is gaining some relief from the harm each time he takes this deadly, pain-relieving drink; but, in the very act of drinking, once the belly is filled and can no longer receive anything more, afterward he gives up his spirit along with the drink.

Thus this man too works out death by means of a drink for those who have been deceived by him; and having, by the power of God, been delivered from his venom, let us proceed to what follows.

Against the Colorbasians: fifteen, but thirty-five in the sequence.

Colorbasus follows after these, having gathered his collection from the sorcery of the aforementioned Mark, but also having sprung up like thorns from the root of Ptolemy;

and again, apart from these, he devised other things to trouble the world like goads, contriving, as though he had come from above, a supposedly greater expertise.

And at first he was of the same mind as Mark, their heresy being like a two-headed serpent; but afterward, like a head cut off from the body of a reptile and still breathing, he did harm and destroyed many, as though displaying something supposedly greater and more expert than those who were with him and the original leaders.

For he says that the first Ogdoad was not put forth by successive gradation, one Aeon by another, but that the emission of the six Aeons was brought forth all together and at once by the Forefather and his Thought (Ennoia), as he himself, having played the midwife, asserts.

And no longer, as the others say, that Man and Church came from Word and Life, but he and his followers say that Word and Life were brought forth from Man and Church.

But they also say this in another way: that when the Forefather conceived the thought of putting forth an emission, this was called 'Father';

and since what he put forth was truth, this was named 'Truth.'

And when he willed to display himself, this was called 'Man.'

And those whom he had reckoned beforehand in his thought when he put them forth, this was named 'Church';

†And Man [put forth] the Word;

this is the firstborn son.

And Life follows after the Word.

And thus the first Ogdoad was completed.

And there is much strife among them also concerning the Savior.

For some say that he came into being out of all of them, and is therefore called 'well-pleasing,' because the whole Pleroma was well pleased to glorify the Father through him;

but others say that he came only from the ten Aeons put forth from Word and Life, and that for this reason he is called Word and Life, preserving the ancestral names;

but others say he came from the twelve Aeons that came into being from Man and Church, and that for this reason he confesses himself to be Son of Man, as it were a descendant of Man;

but others say that he came into being from Christ and the Holy Spirit, who were put forth for the establishment of the Pleroma, and that for this reason he is called Christ, preserving the appellation of the Father from whom he was put forth.

But others, certain rhapsodists among them so to speak, say that the Forefather of all things, the Pre-beginning and the Pre-inconceivable, is called Man;

and this, they say, is the great and hidden mystery: that the power which is above all things and encompasses all things is called Man;

and for this reason the Savior calls himself Son of Man.

Such, then, is the vain and fantastical empty babbling of Colorbasus, harmful to life and made up of mere noises;

if anyone examines it closely, he will know from those who came before him that vain ambition is the cause of each of these men's speculation.

He spoke falsely, neither uttering anything according to prophecy — for the Holy Spirit did not speak in them — nor having so much as a single pretext from the truth of the prophets and the gospels.

And the refutation of all these things belonging to this falsely-named 'knowledge' is the same argument of truth already spoken against the first of them.

For all these men, belonging to the school of Valentinus and to those before him, each interpreting his meaning differently, will incur the same shame as they did.

For this Colorbasus too has come bringing us a great deception of empty talk.

For he attacked us by fictitiously assigning to the incomprehensible, invisible, and holy God, the Father of all things, the name ‘Man,’ so as to yoke to his own error the Word of the Savior who declares himself Son of Man, and to lead the understanding of those who follow him away from the true and most evident confession of Christ concerning himself into helplessness and empty talk † of inquiry, supposing there to be among the heavenly realities something that does not exist.

For let us grant—according to the account of this pitiable Colorbasus—that he calls himself ‘Son of Man’ because his Father somewhere above is called ‘Man,’ and not because he was born of the flesh which he took from a virgin womb, that is, from holy Mary, through the Holy Spirit: what, then, could he say concerning him of whom our Lord Jesus Christ himself speaks, as he said to the Jews, ‘But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from my Father’?

And here he no longer said, ‘of the Man, my Father,’ but concerning the Father, in confessing him, he signified the God of all things, while concerning himself, because he had truly become man, he called himself a man.

As the apostles also say, so that the truth might be established from every side, and it might be known whence come the names joined to the Lord: ‘Jesus, a man attested to us by signs and wonders,’ and so on.

What, then, would you say to this?

O most pitiable of all men, since you come from on high bringing us new names, and pride yourself on having dared to attach the name ‘Man’ to the Master of all himself and Father of all things, so that from this the Lord is called ‘Son of Man’ because the Father is called ‘Man’—

find for us also some other title fitting for the Father, in keeping with ‘a man attested.’

For even though a ‘man’ (anēr) is indeed a human being (anthrōpos), and we call the human being ‘man’ in contradistinction to woman, nevertheless you would not be able to contrive anything in this respect either.

For without bodily shapes and members, both hidden and visible, one cannot be called a ‘man.’

For we also call the woman a human being, but not ‘man.’

Therefore we say both ‘ho anthrōpos’ [the man, with the masculine article] and ‘hē anthrōpos’ [the woman, with the feminine article].

But when we distinguish the sex specifically, we call the female ‘woman’ and the male ‘man.’

For this—‘man’ and ‘woman’—is the distinguishing of the sex, male and female, the relation of the genders being thus divided.

But by a common name, both the man and the woman are called ‘human being.’

Since, then, these things are so, come to me, all you servants of God, lovers of the truth, and laugh at the deceiver and charlatan Colorbasus—or rather, mourn for those who have been deceived, and who have destroyed both themselves and many others.

But let us give thanks to God, since through small and simple words truth is accustomed to guide her own sons into the straight way, and scatters, overturns, and makes to vanish those cruel and boastful things which have been decked out through much artifice—walking quietly herself, as one can clearly see from the prophetic word.

For the prophet, rebuking those who busy themselves with dreadful things and devise many-worded schemes for their own deception, said: ‘Because you did not want the water of Siloam that flows quietly, therefore the Lord brings up against you the water of the river, the king of the Assyrians.’

But who could this be other than our Lord Jesus, who was sent from God his Father? And ‘quietly,’ because there is nothing empty-sounding or feigned in him, but in truth he leads his holy bride, who by him is called ‘dove’ in the Song of Songs of Solomon, on account of the harmlessness, gentleness, and utter purity of that creature.

And it is a marvel how, though the others do not belong to him but have called themselves by his name, he named them ‘concubines’ and ‘queens,’ on account of the royal name which each of them, inscribing ‘Christ’ upon herself, prides herself upon.

But even though there are eighty concubines—these are the heresies—and after them young maidens without number, Scripture says: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one’—that is, the holy bride and catholic Church herself.

‘Dove,’ as I have said, because of the gentleness, harmlessness, and purity of that creature; ‘perfect,’ because she has received from God the perfect grace, and knowledge from the Savior himself through the Holy Spirit.

The bridegroom himself, then—‘the Sent One,’ which being interpreted is ‘Siloam’—has water that flows quietly, that is, a teaching without clamor, without noise, without ostentation, and without boasting.

And his bride, too, is herself a quiet dove, having neither venom, nor grinding fangs, nor stings, unlike all these serpent-shaped creatures who gush forth venom, each one eagerly striving to concoct some poison for the world and to ruin those who have been persuaded by him.

And this man too happens to be one of these, whom I have here taken pains to expose through the divine word and help from on high, and to crush like the creature called the four-jawed spider, or, like the head cut off from the double-headed serpent called the amphisbaena, to be swiftly shattered.

Having passed over this man, I shall again examine those that follow, and in going through them I shall pray to be granted to speak the truth concerning them, harming no one, nor being harmed myself.

Against the Heracleonites, [heresy] number ten [in this section], but thirty in the overall sequence.

A certain Heracleon succeeds this Colorbasus, from whom those called Heracleonites [take their name], having practiced no less than these men in their empty talk.

And whatever those others say, this man also lays down in every way, inasmuch as he starts out from them and has wiped their venom off onto himself.

But having supposedly fashioned within himself certain things beyond those others, he wishes to surpass them, so that he too might form for himself a congregation of the deceived.

For all these men, having fashioned themselves into a hundred-headed or hundred-handed body, have imitated the figure once fabled among the poets of the Greeks—Cottus, or Briareus (whom they also call Aegaeon), or Gyes, or the one called Argus the many-eyed.

Such monstrosities as those poets fabricate in their epics, fictitiously composing and saying that one has a hundred hands, and sometimes fifty heads and sometimes a hundred, and another has a hundred eyes—and for this reason, they say, Hermes is called ‘Argeiphontes,’ as having slain Argus the many-eyed—so also each of these men, wishing to set up a principal authority for himself, has named himself ‘the head,’ introducing further things alongside the vain labor and mad teaching of his own teachers.

But so that I may not extend the composition of the preface to great length, I shall come to the matter at hand.

This Heracleon, then, and the Heracleonites who derive from him, as I said before, speak—like Mark and certain others before him—concerning the Ogdoads, I mean the upper and the lower.

Then he likewise glorifies the pairings of the thirty Aeons.

And he too says that the Father of all things above is ‘Man,’ whom he also called ‘Bythos’ (Depth).

He himself says that he is neither male nor female, and that from him comes the Mother of all things, whom he also names ‘Silence’ and ‘Truth.’

And from her comes the second Mother, who came to be in forgetfulness, whom he too calls ‘Achamoth.’

From her, then, all things came to subsist in deficiency.

But this man too wishes to say more than those before him, and these are the things [he says]: