Refutation of All Heresies 7 part 2/3

Since, then, all the things in the Hebdomad had been enlightened and the gospel had been announced to them — for according to them there are, at each of these intervals, innumerable creations and principalities and powers and authorities, concerning which there is, according to them, a very lengthy account given at great length, in which they even speak of three hundred sixty-five heavens, and say that their great Ruler is Abrasax, because his name contains the number 365, since the number of the name contains all things, and for this reason the year consists of that many days —

But, he says, since these things happened thus, it was necessary thereafter that the formlessness pertaining to us also be enlightened, and that the mystery be revealed to the Sonship left behind in the formlessness, as it were an untimely birth — the mystery which was not made known to the former generations, as it is written, he says: "By revelation the mystery was made known to me... and I heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter."

The light came down from the Hebdomad, that which had come down from above, from the Ogdoad, to the son of the Hebdomad, down upon Jesus the son of Mary, and he was enlightened, being kindled together with the light that shone into him.

This, he says, is what was said: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon you" — that Spirit which, from the Sonship, through the boundary-spirit, passed through the Ogdoad and the Hebdomad as far as Mary; "and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you" — the power of judgment, from the summit above of the Demiurge as far as the creation, that is, the power belonging to the son.

Until that time, he says, the world will continue to stand thus, until the whole Sonship left behind to do good to souls in formlessness, and to be done good to, being given form, follows after Jesus and runs back up and comes, having been purified; and it becomes most fine-particled, so as to be able to run back up of itself, just as the first Sonship did. For it has all its power naturally fixed together with the light that shone from above down to it.

When, then, he says, the whole Sonship comes and is above the boundary, the boundary-spirit, then creation will be pitied; for it groans until now and is tormented and awaits the revelation of the sons of God, that all the men of the Sonship may go up from here. When this comes to pass, he says, God will bring upon the whole world the great ignorance, so that all things may remain according to nature, and nothing may desire anything contrary to nature.

For all the souls of this level, as many as have by nature the lot to remain immortal in this alone, will remain, knowing nothing different from or better than this interval; nor will there be any hearing among those below of the things above, nor knowledge of them; so that the souls below may not be tormented by desiring things impossible, like a fish that desires to graze in the mountains together with the sheep; for such a desire, he says, would prove destruction to them.

All things, then, he says, are incorruptible so long as they remain in their own place, but corruptible if they should wish to leap over and transgress beyond what is according to nature. Thus the Ruler of the Hebdomad will know nothing of the things above; for the great ignorance will overtake him too, that grief and pain and groaning may depart from him; for he will desire none of the things impossible, nor will he be grieved.

This same ignorance will likewise overtake the great Ruler of the Ogdoad, and all the creations subject to him in the same way, so that in no respect will anything desire anything contrary to nature, nor be grieved; and thus there will be the restoration of all things, which had been founded according to nature, in the beginning, in the seed of the universe, and which will be restored in their own proper times.

That each thing, he says, has its own proper times, the Savior sufficiently shows when he says: "My hour has not yet come"; and likewise the Magi who beheld the star; for he himself too, he says, was under the birth of stars and the hour of restoration, having been reckoned beforehand within the great mass.

This is, according to them, what is conceived of as the "inner man," spiritual within the psychic man — that is, the Sonship here leaving behind the soul, not as something mortal but remaining, according to its own nature, in the very manner in which the first Sonship left, above, the Holy Spirit, the boundary spirit, in its own place — the inner man then being clothed with its own soul.

So that we may leave out nothing of their doctrines, I will set forth also as much as they say concerning the gospel. The gospel, according to them, is the knowledge of the things above the world, as has been shown, which the great Ruler did not know. As, then, it was made known to him that there is also a Holy Spirit, that is, the boundary spirit, and the Sonship, and God the cause of all these, the non-existent one, he rejoiced at the things spoken and exulted; this, according to them, is the gospel.

Jesus, according to them, came into being as we have said before; and once the birth already indicated had taken place, all the things concerning the Savior happened likewise, according to them, just as is written in the gospels. These things happened, he says, so that Jesus might become the firstfruits of the distinguishing-apart of the things that had been confused together.

For since the world is divided into the Ogdoad, which is the head of the whole world — and the head of the whole world is the great Ruler — and into the Hebdomad, which is the head of the Hebdomad, the Demiurge of the things below, and into this interval belonging to us, where the formlessness is, it was necessary that the things confused together be distinguished apart through the division effected by Jesus.

That part of him, then, which was bodily, which belonged to the formlessness, suffered, and it was restored into the formlessness; and that part of him which was psychic, which belonged to the Hebdomad, rose up, and it was restored into the Hebdomad; and he raised up that which belonged to the summit proper to the great Ruler, and it remained beside the great Ruler; and he carried up as far as above that which belonged to the boundary-spirit, and it remained in the boundary-spirit.

And the third Sonship, which had been left behind to do good and to be done good to, was purified through him, and ascended to the blessed Sonship, having passed through all these things. For the whole of their system is a matter of the confusion, as it were, of a panspermia, and the distinguishing-apart and restoration of the things confused into their proper places.

Jesus, then, became the firstfruits of the distinguishing-apart, and the passion happened for no other reason than that the confused things might be distinguished apart. For in this way, he says, the whole Sonship left behind in the formlessness, for the purpose of doing good and being done good to, must be distinguished apart, in the very manner in which Jesus also has been distinguished apart.

These, then, are the fables which Basilides devised, having studied in Egypt; and having been taught by them such great wisdom, he brought forth such fruits as these.

Now a certain Saturninus, who flourished at the same time as Basilides, and who spent his time in Antioch of Syria, taught doctrines such as Menander also taught. He says that there is one Father unknown to all, who made angels, archangels, powers.

And by seven certain angels the world was made, and everything in it; and man too is the handiwork of angels, a shining image having appeared from above, from the Authority, which, because they were unable to hold it fast — since it, he says, immediately ran back up above — they exhorted themselves, saying: "Let us make man according to image and according to likeness."

This having come to pass, he says, and the moulded creature not being able to stand, because of the powerlessness of the angels, but writhing like a worm, the power above, taking pity on him because he had come to be in her likeness, sent a spark of life, which roused the man up and made him live.

This spark of life, then, he says, runs back after death to the things of its own kind, and the rest, the things out of which he was made, are dissolved back into those elements. And he supposed the Savior to be unbegotten and incorporeal and without form, but that he had appeared as a man in semblance only.

And he says that the God of the Jews is one of the angels, and that, because the Father wished to destroy all the rulers, Christ came for the destruction of the God of the Jews, and for the salvation of those who believe in him; and that these are the ones who have the spark of life within them.

For he said that two races of men had been moulded by the angels, the one wicked, the other good; and since the demons helped the wicked, the Savior had come for the destruction of the base men and of the demons, but for the salvation of the good.

He says that marrying and begetting children are from Satan; and most of those who belong to his sect abstain also from animal food, deceiving many through this pretended self-control. As for the prophecies, he says that some were spoken by the world-making angels, and others by Satan, whom he also supposed to be an angel acting in opposition to the world-making angels, and especially to the God of the Jews. These, then, are the doctrines of Saturninus.

But Marcion of Pontus, far more insane than these, having passed over most of the doctrines of the majority of his predecessors, and having rushed on to a more shameless position, supposed two first principles of the universe, calling one good and the other evil; and he too, thinking that he was introducing something new, fashioned a school full of madness and of a cynic-like life, being himself a contentious sort.

This man, thinking that it would escape the notice of the many that he is a disciple not of Christ but of Empedocles, who lived far earlier than he, having laid down the same doctrines, taught as dogma that there are two causes of the universe, Strife and Love.

For what Empedocles says concerning the ordering of the world, although we have said before, yet even now, in order to set it side by side against the heresy of this word-thief, I will not pass over in silence.

He says that the elements out of which the world consists and is, are in all six: two material, earth and water; two instrumental, by which the material elements are ordered and transformed, fire and air; and two that work upon the matter by means of the instruments and fashion it, Strife and Love — speaking somewhat as follows: "Hear first the four roots of all things: shining Zeus, and life-bearing Hera, and Aïdoneus, and Nestis, who with her tears bedews the mortal fount." Zeus is fire.

"Life-bearing Hera" is the earth, which bears the fruits pertaining to life; Aïdoneus is the air, because, while we see all things through it, it alone we do not behold; and Nestis is water, for this alone, though it becomes the vehicle and cause of nourishment for all things nourished, is not able of itself alone to nourish the things nourished.

For if it nourished, he says, living creatures would never be overtaken by famine, since water is always abundant in the world. For this reason he calls water "Nestis," because, while it becomes the cause of nourishment, it lacks the strength to nourish the things nourished.

These, then, to sum it up in outline, are the things that hold together the whole system of the world: water and earth, out of which things come to be; fire and air, the instruments and active powers; and Strife and Love, the powers that fashion by craft.

And Love is a kind of peace and concord and affection, choosing that the world be one, perfect, fitted together; while Strife ever tears apart the one and breaks it into fragments, or makes many out of one.

Strife, then, is the cause of all creation, which he says is "baneful," that is, destructive; for it is its concern that this creation should hold together throughout all time; and destructive Strife is the demiurge and maker of the coming-into-being of all things that have come to be, while Love is the cause of their leading out of the world, and change, and restoration into the One.

Concerning these two, that they are immortal and ungenerated, and have never taken a beginning of coming-into-being, Empedocles speaks elsewhere in some such manner: "For indeed it was before, and will be, nor ever, I think, will boundless eternity be emptied of these two." Of which two? Of Strife and Love; for they did not begin to come into being, but existed before and will always exist, being unable, on account of their unbegottenness, to undergo destruction; whereas fire and water and earth and air die and come to life again.

For whenever these elements die, coming to be many under Strife, Love takes them and brings them near and adds them and makes them akin to the whole, so that the whole may remain one, being always ordered by Love in a single manner and a single form.

But whenever Love makes the one out of the many, and unites the scattered things to the one, then again Strife tears them away from the one and makes many, that is, fire, water, earth, air, and the animals and plants born from these, and all the parts of the world that we observe.

And concerning the form of the world, what sort it is when ordered by Love, he speaks in some such way: "For from its back no two branches dart forth, no feet, no swift knees, no generative members, but it was a sphere, and is equal to itself on every side."

Such, then, and most beautiful, is the form of the world which Love fashions as one out of many; but Strife, the cause of the ordering of the parts, tears things apart from that one and fashions many. And this is what Empedocles says concerning his own birth: "Of these I too am now an exile from god," calling "god" the one and its unity, in which he was before he was torn away by Strife and came to be among these many things according to the ordering of Strife.

"For trusting in raving Strife," he says — Empedocles calling Strife, the demiurge of this world, "raving" and "disturbed." For this is the sentence of condemnation and the necessity laid upon souls, whom Strife tears away from the one and fashions and works upon, speaking in some such manner:

"Whoever, having sinned as a perjurer, swears falsely — among the daimones who have obtained a life of many ages" — calling the souls "daimones," and "of many ages" because they are immortal and live for long ages.

"Exiled for thrice ten thousand seasons from the blessed ones" — calling "the blessed ones" those who have been gathered by Love out of the many into the unity of the intelligible world. These, then, he says, wander about, growing through time into all kinds of forms of mortal things, "exchanging the grievous paths of life." He says that the "grievous paths" are the changes and rearrangements of souls into bodies.

This is what he means by "exchanging the grievous paths of life"; for the souls exchange body for body, being changed and punished by Strife, and not allowed to remain in the one, but being punished with every kind of punishment by Strife, the souls being changed from body to body.

"The force of ether drives the souls toward the sea," he says, "and the sea spits them forth onto the surface of the earth, and earth casts them into the rays of the blazing sun, and he hurls them into the eddies of ether; one receives them from another, and all abhor them." This is the punishment which the demiurge inflicts.

Just as a smith rearranges iron, dipping it alternately from fire into water; for ether is fire, whence the demiurge changes the souls into the sea, and "chthon" is earth; whence he says: "out of water into earth, out of earth into air." This is what he means:

"And earth casts them into the rays of the blazing sun, and he hurls them into the eddies of ether; one receives them from another, and all abhor them." The souls, then, being thus hated and tormented and punished in this world according to Empedocles, are gathered together by Love, which is a good power and pities their groaning and the disorderly and evil construction wrought by raving Strife, and strives and labors to lead them out of the world little by little and to make them akin to the One.

So that all things may come, led by her, to their goal in unity. On account, then, of such a construction, wrought by the destructive Strife, of this dismembered world of all things ensouled, Empedocles exhorts his own disciples to abstain from eating animal flesh; for he says that the bodies of the animals that are eaten are the dwelling-places of punished souls; and he teaches that those who hearken to such teachings should be continent even with regard to intercourse with women, so that they may not cooperate and take part in the works which Strife fashions, ever undoing and tearing apart the work of Love.

Empedocles says that this is the greatest law of the governance of the universe, speaking in some such manner: "It is a decree of Necessity, an ancient ordinance of the gods, eternal, sealed with broad oaths" — calling "Necessity" the change from one into many according to Strife, and from many into one according to Love; and calling "gods," as I said, four mortal ones — fire, water, earth, air — and two immortal, ungenerated, ever at war with one another — Strife and Love.

And Strife continually does wrong and grasps for advantage, and tears away the things belonging to Love and appropriates them to itself; while Love, always and continually, being a good power and caring for unity, calls back and brings near and makes one the things torn away from the whole and tormented and punished in creation by the demiurge.

Such, then, according to Empedocles, is for us the philosophical account of the world's generation and destruction and constitution, consisting of good and evil. And he says that there is also a certain third intelligible power, which can be conceived even from these premises, speaking in some such manner:

"For if, fixing them firmly beneath your close-packed mind, you gaze upon them favorably with pure practices, these things will all remain with you throughout your life, and you will gain many other things from them; for they themselves grow into each character, according to what is by nature proper to each. But if you should reach out for things of another kind, such as the countless base things that occur among men, which blunt one's cares, then quickly, as time revolves, they will abandon you, longing to return to their own kindred stock; for know that all things possess thought and a portion of understanding."

Whenever, then, Marcion or one of his dogs barks against the demiurge, bringing forward the arguments derived from the antithesis of good and evil, one must say to them that these doctrines were proclaimed neither by Paul the apostle nor by Mark "of the stunted finger" — for none of these things is written in the gospel according to Mark — but by Meton of Acragas, whom, by plundering, he supposed his plagiarism would go unnoticed until now, transferring the whole arrangement of his heresy from Sicily into the language of the gospels, in the very words of his source.

Come now, O Marcion, just as you have made an antithesis of good and evil, let me too today make an antithesis, following, as you suppose, your own doctrines. You say that the demiurge of the world is evil; then are you not ashamed, teaching the church the words of Empedocles?

You say that the good God destroys the works of the demiurge; then are you not, quite openly, preaching to your hearers the good Empedoclean Love as if it were "the good God"? You forbid marrying, begetting children, and command abstaining from foods which God created for participation by the faithful and by those who have come to know the truth; you are unwittingly teaching the Purifications of Empedocles.

For following him in all things, as it were closely, you teach your own disciples to decline foods, so that they may not eat a certain body that is the remnant of a soul punished by the demiurge; you dissolve the marriages joined together by God, following the doctrines of Empedocles, so that for you the work of Love may be preserved as one and undivided. For, according to Empedocles, marriage divides the one and makes many, as we have shown.

The first and purest heresy of Marcion, then, having its constitution from good and evil, has been shown by us to be that of Empedocles. But since, in our own times, a certain Marcionist, Prepon the Assyrian, has now attempted something more novel, composing in writing, addressed to Bardesanes the Armenian, arguments concerning the heresy, I will not pass over this in silence either.

Declaring that there is a third principle, the just principle, set in the middle between good and evil, not even thus was Prepon able to escape the doctrines of Empedocles.

For Empedocles says that there is a world governed by evil Strife, and another, intelligible one, governed by Love; and that these are the two differing first principles, of good and of evil; and that in the middle of the differing principles there is a just Reason, according to which the things divided by Strife are combined together and, in accordance with Love, are fitted together into the One.

Empedocles calls this very just reason, which strives together with Love (Philia), "Muse," and he himself calls upon it to strive along with him, speaking somewhat as follows: "For if, for the sake of any creature of a day, immortal Muse, it was your care that our concerns should come within your thought, now again stand by me as I pray, Calliopeia, as I set forth a good account concerning the blessed gods."

Following these [doctrines], Marcion altogether rejected the birth of our Savior, considering it absurd that the reason which strives together with Love — that is, with the Good — should have come to be under the molding of most destructive Strife; but [he holds] that, without birth, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, he came down from above, being midway between evil and good, to teach in the synagogues.

For if he is a midpoint, he says, he is set free from every nature of evil; and the demiurge, as [Marcion] says, is evil, and so are his works. For this reason, he says, Jesus came down unbegotten, that he might be free from all wickedness. And he is set free, he says, also from the nature of the good, that he might be a midpoint — as Paul says, and as [Jesus] himself confesses:

"Why do you call me good? There is one who is good." These, then, are the opinions held by Marcion, by which he led many astray, making use of the words of Empedocles and transposing into his own doctrine the philosophy devised by that man, thereby establishing a godless heresy.

I consider that this [heresy] has been sufficiently refuted by us, and that nothing has been left out of those things which, having stealthily borrowed them from the Greeks, they use to slander the disciples of Christ, as though these had become their teachers. But since it seems to us that his [Marcion's] doctrines too have been sufficiently set forth, let us see what Carpocrates says.

Carpocrates says that the world and the things in it were made by angels far inferior to the unbegotten Father; and that Jesus was begotten of Joseph, and, having become like other men, became more righteous than the rest; and that his soul, being vigorous and pure, remembered the things it had beheld while in its revolution together with the unbegotten God, and that for this reason a power was sent down to it by that [God], so that through it [that power] it might be able to escape the makers of the world.

and [they say] that this [power/soul], having passed through all things and been set free in all of them, he thereby came [to God]; and likewise they say that the soul of Jesus, having been lawfully trained in Jewish customs, came to despise them, and for this reason received powers, by which he abolished the punitive sufferings that attach to men.

Any soul, therefore, that is able, like that soul of Christ, to despise the rulers who fashioned the world, likewise receives power to do the same things. Hence they have descended into such vanity/delusion that they say some of themselves are like Jesus, others even in some respect more powerful, and some again more excellent than his disciples, such as Peter and Paul and the rest of the apostles.

[They say] that these fall short of Jesus in nothing. For their souls, being present [i.e. deriving] from the power that lies above, and therefore likewise despising the makers of the world, have been deemed worthy of the same power, and pass again into that same [realm]; and if anyone should despise the things here more than he did, he could be more excellent than he.

They practice magical arts, therefore, and incantations, love-charms and charm-spells, and [invoke] familiar spirits and dream-senders and the rest of their evildoing, claiming that they already have authority to rule over the rulers and makers of this world, and indeed over all the works within it as well.

These same men have been put forward by Satan for the slander of the divine name of the Church before the nations, so that people, hearing their doings in this way and that, and supposing all of us to be such as these, may turn away their ears from the proclamation of the truth, or [again], seeing their doings, may blaspheme us.

They claim that souls are reincarnated in body after body for as long as it takes for them to fulfill/commit all sins; and when nothing is left [undone], then, being set free, the soul departs to that God who is above the angels who made the world, and thus all souls shall be saved.

But if some manage, already in one lifetime, to have engaged in all sins, they are no longer reincarnated, but, having paid off all their debts at once, they are set free from ever again coming to be in a body. Some of these also brand their own disciples on the back part of the lobe of the right ear. And they also fashion images of Christ, saying that these were made by Pilate at that time.

A certain Cerinthus, himself trained in the learning of the Egyptians, said that the world was not made by the first God, but by a certain power separated from the authority that is above all things and ignorant of the God who is above all. And he supposed that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but was born as a son of Joseph and Mary, similarly to all the rest of men, and that he became more righteous and wiser [than the rest].

And [he taught] that after the baptism the Christ descended upon him, from the sovereign authority that is above all things, in the form of a dove, and then he proclaimed the unknown Father and performed works of power; but toward the end the Christ flew away from Jesus, and Jesus suffered and was raised, while the Christ remained impassible, being spiritual.

The Ebionites, on the one hand, confess that the world was made by the truly existing God, but concerning Christ they tell myths similarly to Cerinthus and Carpocrates. They live according to Jewish customs, claiming to be justified according to the Law, and saying that Jesus too was justified by fulfilling the Law.

For this reason he was named Christ of God, and Jesus, since none of the others had fulfilled the Law; for if any other had done the things commanded in the Law, that man would have been the Christ. And [they say] that they themselves too, by doing likewise, are able to become christs; for indeed they say that he too was, like all others, a man.

A certain Theodotus, a Byzantine, introduced a new heresy, claiming that his views concerning the first principle (arche) of the universe were in partial agreement with those of the true Church, confessing that all things were made by God; but, drawing on the school of the Gnostics, Cerinthus, and the Ebionites concerning Christ, he claims that Christ appeared in some such manner as this:

[He says] that Jesus was a man, born of a virgin according to the will of the Father, and that, having lived in common with all men and having become most pious, at his baptism in the Jordan he received the Christ, who had descended from above in the form of a dove; whence the powers did not work in him before that, but only once the Spirit that came down and was manifested in him — which [Spirit] he calls the Christ. Some of them wish that he never became God [even] at the descent of the Spirit, while others [hold that he became God] after the resurrection from the dead.