Their tradition concerning the "redemption" (apolytrōsis) happens to be invisible and incomprehensible, inasmuch as it is the mother of things uncontainable and invisible. And on this account, being unstable, it cannot be expounded simply or in any one formula, since each one of them, according to his own pleasure, hands it down differently; for there are as many redemptions as there are mystagogues of this opinion. And that this form has been suggested by Satan toward the denial of the baptism that is the regeneration unto God, and toward the casting away of the whole faith, we shall declare when we refute them in the appropriate place. They say that it is necessary for those who have received the perfect knowledge, that they may be regenerated into the power that is above all things. For otherwise it is impossible to enter within; since this is what leads them down into the depth of Bythos. For the baptism of the visible Jesus is unto the remission of sins, but the redemption of the Christ who descended into him is unto perfection; and the one, they maintain, is psychic, but the other spiritual. And the baptism was proclaimed by John unto repentance, but the redemption was brought by the Christ Jesus within him unto perfection. And this is that of which he speaks: "And I have another baptism to be baptized with, and I greatly hasten unto it." Moreover, to the sons of Zebedee, when their mother asked that they might sit at his right hand and his left with him in the kingdom, they say 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 assert that Paul expressly indicated the redemption in Christ Jesus many times; and that this is what is handed down by them in varied and discordant ways.
For some of them prepare a bridal chamber and perform a mystagogy with certain invocations upon those who are being perfected, and they say that what is done by them is a spiritual marriage, after the likeness of the conjugal pairs above. Others lead them to water, and as they baptize, they say over them: "Into the name of the unknown Father of all, into Truth the mother of all, into him who descended into Jesus, into union and redemption and communion of the powers." Others, again, pronounce certain Hebrew names, the more to astonish those being perfected, thus: "Basema chamossē baaianora mistadia rouada kousta babophor kalachthei." The interpretation of these names is as follows: "Above every power of the Father I call upon you who are named Light, and good Spirit, and Life, because you reigned in a body." And others again pronounce the redemption thus: "The name that is hidden from every deity and dominion and truth, which Jesus the Nazarene put on in the regions of the light of Christ—of the Christ who lives through the Holy Spirit—unto angelic redemption: the name of restoration: Messia oupharekg namempsaiman chaldaian mosomedaea akphranai psaoua, Jesus the Nazarene." And the interpretation of these is as follows: "I do not divide the Spirit, the heart, and the supercelestial merciful power; may I enjoy your name, O Savior of truth." And these things they say who are performing the rite. But the one who is being perfected answers: "I have been established and redeemed, and I redeem my soul from this Aeon and from all that comes from it, in the name of Iaō, who redeemed his soul unto redemption in the living Christ." Then those who are present say: "Peace to all upon whom this name rests." After this they anoint the perfected one with the juice from balsam; for they say that this ointment is a type of the fragrance that is above all things.
But some of them assert that to lead to the water is superfluous; and mixing oil and water together, with invocations of like kind to those we have mentioned, they pour it upon the head of those being perfected; and this, they hold, is the redemption. They too anoint with balsam. But others, rejecting all these things, assert that the mystery of the ineffable and invisible power ought not to be performed through visible and corruptible created things, nor that of the inconceivable and bodiless through perceptible and corporeal things. The perfect redemption, they say, is the very knowledge of the ineffable Greatness; for since it was through ignorance that the Deficiency and the passion came to be, the whole constitution arising from that ignorance is dissolved through knowledge; so that knowledge is the redemption of the inner man. And it is neither corporeal, 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 Father's spirit; the redemption, therefore, must be spiritual. For the inner, spiritual man is redeemed through knowledge, and they are content with the knowledge of all things; and this, they say, is the true redemption.
[They put into the mouth of the redeemed soul such words as these:] "I am a son from the Father—the Father who pre-existed—and a son in him who pre-exists. I have come to behold all things, both what is foreign and what is my own; yet not wholly foreign, but belonging to Achamoth, who is female and made these things for herself. I draw my race from him who pre-exists, and I go again into my own, whence I came." And by saying these things, the soul escapes the authorities. And it comes to those about the Demiurge, and says: "I am a precious vessel, more so than the female who made you. If your mother is ignorant of her own root, I know myself, and I know whence I am, and I call upon the incorruptible Sophia, who is in the Father, and is the mother of your mother, who has no mother, nor yet a male consort; but being a female sprung from a female, she made you, in ignorance of her own mother, and supposing herself to be alone; but I call upon her mother." And those about the Demiurge, hearing this, are greatly troubled and condemn their root and the race of their mother; but the soul departs into its own, casting off its bond—that is, the soul (psyche). Concerning the redemption, these are the things that have come down to us. So then, they say, Stesichorus, having reviled Helen in his verses, was blinded in his eyes; but afterward, when he repented and wrote the recantations in which he hymned her, he recovered his sight. And being thus transmigrated among men, she gave them salvation through the knowledge of herself. For since the angels governed the world badly, because of their love of rule, he said that he came for its setting-right, transformed and made like to the principalities and authorities and angels, so that he even appeared as a man, though he was not a man, and was thought to have suffered in Judea, though he did not suffer. And the prophets, they say, spoke their prophecies inspired by the world-making angels. Therefore those who have believed in Simon and Helen pay no heed to them, but act freely as they please; for they assert that men are saved according to his grace, and that nothing is a cause for judgment if one does evil—for evil is not such by nature, but only by convention. "For the angels who made the world," he says, "ordained whatever things they would," thinking by such words to enslave those who listen to them. And again, they say, the world shall be dissolved for the redemption of their own men.