How Tatian arose out of the opinions of Valentinus and Marcion, constructing his own [doctrines] from them, while Hermogenes makes use of the doctrines of Socrates, not those of Christ.
What is the vainglory of the Encratites, and that their doctrines were constructed from themselves and not from the holy Scriptures, but from the gymnosophists among the Indians.
Since many, not availing themselves of the Lord's counsel, though having the beam in their eye, profess to see while [in fact] being blind, it seems good to us not to keep silent about their doctrines either, so that, perhaps, through the refutation carried out by us, being put to shame, they may come to recognize how the Savior advised that one should first remove the beam, and then look clearly at the speck that is in the brother's eye.
Having, then, sufficiently and adequately set forth the doctrines of the majority [of heretics] in the seven books preceding this one, we shall not now keep silent about what follows, displaying the unstinting grace of the Holy Spirit, and we shall refute those who seem to possess a certainty of their doctrines, who indeed called themselves Docetae, teaching the following as doctrine:
[They say] that the first God is, as it were, a fig-seed — in magnitude altogether the smallest, but in power an infinite magnitude, innumerable in multitude, needing nothing for generation, a refuge for those who fear, a covering for the naked, a veil for shame, a sought-after fruit — [the fruit] to which the seeker came, he says, three times, and did not find it; wherefore, he says, he cursed the fig tree, because he did not find in it that sweet fruit, the fruit that was sought.
God being, roughly speaking, of such a kind and of such a magnitude — small yet all-great, according to them — the world came into being, as they think, in some such manner as this: when the branches of the fig tree had become tender, leaves came forth, as is [still] observed, and thereafter the fruit, in which the infinite and innumerable seed of the fig, being treasured up, is kept safe.
We [i.e. they] think, then, that there are three things first produced from the seed of the fig: the trunk, which is the fig tree, the leaves, and the fruit, the fig, as we have said before. Thus, he says, three aeons came to be, first principles proceeding from the first principle of all things; and this, he says, not even Moses passed over in silence, saying that the words of God are three:
"Darkness, cloud, tempest" — and he added nothing more. For God, he says, added nothing to the three aeons, but they themselves have supplied and do supply everything to all created things. And God himself remains, by himself, far separated from the three aeons. These aeons, he says, having received the beginning of their coming-to-be, as has been said, grew little by little, and were magnified, and became perfect.
And they think that perfection is reckoned as ten. Since, then, the aeons became equal in number and in perfection, as they think, there came to be thirty aeons in all, each of them being completed in a decad. They are distinguishable from one another, and, though holding one honor among themselves, differ only in position — in that the one is first, another second, and the third of these third. Their position, however, provided them with a difference of power: for the one who obtained the position nearest to the first God, the one who is as it were the seed, had a more fecund power than the others — the immeasurable one having measured himself tenfold in magnitude; while the one who, by position, came to be second after the first, comprehended himself sixfold — the incomprehensible one; while the one who by position was already third, having come into an infinite interval through the growth of his brothers, having thrice conceived of himself, bound himself, as it were, with a certain eternal bond of unity.
And they think that this is what was said by the Savior: "The sower went out to sow, and that which fell on the good and fair [ground] produced, one a hundredfold, another sixty, another thirty." And for this reason, he says, [the Savior] said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" — because these things are not for everyone to hear.
All these aeons — both the three and the countless myriads that proceed from them — are all androgynous aeons. Having thus grown and been magnified, and all having come into being from that one first seed, out of their harmony and unity, all of them together, becoming one aeon, the middle one among them, [produced] a common offspring. All of them together begot, out of the virgin Mary, the Savior of all, [begotten] in the midst of Mary, equal in power in every respect to the fig seed, except that this one is begotten, whereas that first seed, from which the fig tree came, is unbegotten.
The three aeons, then, being adorned in every virtue and every holiness, as these men teach they think, and [likewise] that only-begotten child — for he alone came to be, among the countless aeons, out of a threefold begetting, since three unmeasured aeons, being of one mind, begot him — the whole intelligible nature was adorned, lacking nothing; and all those intelligible and eternal beings were light — a light neither formless nor idle, nor needing, as it were, any further working, but having in itself, according to the multitude of the countless myriads, in the manner of the fig, countless forms of the manifold living beings that are there — [this light] shone from above down into the underlying chaos.
And that which was thus illuminated and at the same time formed by those manifold forms from above received fixity, and took on all the forms from above, from the third aeon, which had tripled itself. And this third aeon, seeing all his own characters/imprints together, seized [and held] down in the underlying darkness below, being not ignorant of the power of the darkness, and of the simplicity and unstinting abundance of the light, did not allow the luminous characters to be dragged down for long by the darkness from above.
But rather he set beneath the aeons, from below, a firmament of heaven, and separated between the darkness and the light, and called the light, which was above the firmament, day, and called the darkness night.
So then, as I said, all the countless forms of the third aeon having been seized/held fast in this lowest darkness, the impression of that same aeon too was, along with the rest, sealed upon it — a living fire, come to be from light; whence the great ruler (archon) came to be, concerning whom Moses says: "In the beginning..."
"God made the heaven and the [earth]." It is he, [they say,] that Moses calls the fiery God who spoke from the bush — that is, from the dark air, for "bush" (batos) is every air that lies under darkness. And Moses, he says, called it "bush" because all the forms of light passed down from above, having the air as a passable/traversable way.
No less, too, is speech (logos) known to us from the "bush": for struck air is a sound signifying speech, apart from which human speech is not known. And not only does speech legislate and dwell together with us from the bush, that is, from air, but indeed smells and colors also, through the air, make manifest to us their own powers.
This fiery-formed god, then, the fire that came to be from light, made the world in this way, as Moses says — being himself without substance, having darkness as his substance, and continually insulting the eternal characters of the light that had been seized from above and held down below. Until, then, the manifestation of the Savior, there was, on the part of the fiery god of the light, the demiurge, much wandering of souls — for the forms are called "souls" (psychai) because, having been cooled/breathed out from the things above, they continue in darkness, being changed from bodies into bodies, guarded by the demiurge.
That this is so, he says, one may also perceive from Job, who says: "And I am a wanderer, passing from place to place and from house to house"; and from the Savior, who says: "And if you are willing to accept it, this is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." From the Savior [onward], reincarnation has ceased, and faith is proclaimed for the remission of sins in some such manner as this:
That only-begotten son of the aeons, seeing from above the forms that had been changed from above [and cast] into the dark bodies, willed to descend and rescue them. But knowing that not even the aeons could endure to see the fullness (pleroma) of all the aeons all at once, but that corruptible things, struck with astonishment, would suffer corruption, being overwhelmed by the magnitude and glory of [such] power, he contracted himself, like a very great flash of lightning, into a most tiny body — or rather, like the light of the serpent's eye, contracted beneath the eyelids, [which] reaches as far as heaven and, having touched the stars there, again contracts itself beneath the serpent's eyelids whenever it wishes.
And this light of the eye, doing this and coming to be everywhere and [becoming] all things, is invisible to us; we see only the serpent's eyelids, the white corners, membranes, the many-folded, richly-hued iris, the horn-like tunic (cornea), and beneath this the grape-like pupil (uvea), the net-like [retina], the disc-like [layer] — and there are certain other tunics of the light of the eye, wherein, being clothed, it lies hidden.
In this way, he says, the only-begotten, eternal child from above, having clothed himself with each one of the [aeons] of the third aeon in turn, and having come to be within the thirtyfold of aeons, entered into this world, being of such a size as we have said, invisible, unknown, without glory, disbelieved.
So then, in order, as the Docetae say, that he might also put on the outer darkness — that is, the flesh, he says — an angel who had journeyed with him from above brought the good news to Mary, he says, as it is written. "That which was born of her," as it is written [...]
And once it had been born, he, having come from above, put it on; and he did everything just as it is written in the Gospels — he was washed in the Jordan; and he was washed, receiving in the water a type and seal of the body that had been born from the virgin, so that, when the ruler (archon) should condemn his own creature to death, to the cross, that soul, having been nourished in the body, having stripped off the body and nailed it to the wood, and having triumphed through it over the principalities and powers, might not be found naked, but might put on, instead of that flesh, the body that had been stamped/formed in the water at the time it was baptized.
This, he says, is what the Savior says: "Unless one is born of water and Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" — because that which is born of the flesh is flesh. From the thirty aeons, then, he put on thirty forms; and for this reason that eternal one was on the earth for thirty years, being manifested for one year by the form of each aeon.
There are also, from each of the thirty aeons, forms held fast [in bodies below] — souls — and each of these has, by nature, the capacity to apprehend the Jesus who corresponds to its own nature, whom that only-begotten, eternal one put on from the eternal places. And these [souls] differ from one another.
For this reason so many heresies contentiously seek after Jesus, and he is proper/akin to all of them, appearing differently to different [sects], from a different place [for each], toward which each is carried, he says, and hastens, thinking that this alone is he who is her own kinsman and fellow-citizen — the one she first recognized as her own, alone, as a brother, while regarding the others as illegitimate.
Those, then, who have their nature from the lower places are unable to see the forms of the Savior that are above them; but those from above, he says — from the middle decad and the excellent ogdoad, whence we are, they say — know the Savior Jesus not in part, but wholly, and are alone perfect from above, while all the others [know him] only in part.
I consider, then, that these things are sufficient for those of sound judgment toward a recognition of the intricate and incoherent heresy of the Docetae, who, having composed elaborate arguments concerning matter that is impassable and incomprehensible, called themselves Docetae ("those who seem"); and we do not understand their vanity to consist in some mere "seeming to be," but we thoroughly refute the beam that is carried in their eye, [a beam derived] from so much matter — [we do this] in the hope that they may somehow be able to see clearly; but if not, then at least that they may not blind others.
The doctrine of these men the sophists of the Greeks had, long ago, in many respects already devised beforehand, as those who read [this work] may recognize. These, then, are the opinions held by the Docetae; but as for what Monoïmus too holds, we shall not keep silent.
Monoïmus the Arab has strayed far from the doctrine of the great-voiced poet, having supposed man to be of such a kind, as the poet [speaks of him], speaking somewhat as follows:
"Ocean, the begetting/origin of gods and the begetting/origin of men." Transposing these words into other terms, he says that Man is the All, [who is] the first principle of the universe, unbegotten, incorruptible, eternal; and [that there is] a Son of the aforesaid Man, [who is] begotten and subject to suffering, having come to be without time, without will, without predetermination. For such, he says, is the power of that Man.
And this, he says, is what is said in the Scriptures: "He was, and he came to be" — that is: he who was Man, and his Son came to be, as one might say: "there was fire, and light came to be," without time and without will and without predetermination, at the very same [moment] as the fire's existing.
This Man is a single monad, uncompounded, indivisible, [yet also] compounded, divisible; wholly friendly, wholly peaceable, wholly warlike, wholly at war with itself, unlike [itself yet] like [itself] — as it were a kind of musical harmony, having in itself all things, whatever one might say and whatever one might pass over without understanding, manifesting all things, begetting all things. This is Mother, this is Father — the two immortal names.
For example's sake, consider, he says, the greatest image of the perfect man to be one iota, the one stroke, which is a single stroke without composition, simple, a pure monad having its composition from nothing at all, yet composite, multiform, many-cleft, many-parted.
That indivisible one, he says, is the many-faced and myriad-eyed and myriad-named one stroke of the iota, which is the image of that invisible perfect man.
The monad, then, he says, the one stroke, is also the decad; for this is the power of the one stroke of the iota... and the dyad and the triad and the tetrad and the pentad and the hexad and the heptad and the ogdoad and the ennead up to the ten; for these, he says, are the manifold numbers dwelling within that simple and uncomposite single stroke of the iota.
And this is what is said: that all the pleroma was pleased to dwell in the Son of Man bodily; for such combinations of numbers have become, he says, bodily hypostases out of the simple and uncomposite single stroke of the iota.
There came into being, then, he says, from the perfect man the son of man, whom no one has known; but all creation imagines him, not knowing the son, to be the offspring of a female, while the very dim rays of this son, drawing near to this world, hold together and sustain change, that is, generation.
But the beauty of that son of man is up to now incomprehensible to all men, as many as are erring about the offspring of the female. Nothing here, then, he says, has come into being from that man, nor ever will; but all things that have come into being have come into being not from the whole but from a certain part of the son of man. For the son of man is, he says, one iota, one stroke, flowing from above, full, filling up all, having in itself as much as the man has -- the father of the son of man.
The world, then, came into being, as Moses says, in six days, that is, in the powers that are in the one stroke of the iota; the seventh, rest and sabbath, came into being from the hebdomad there... of earth and water and fire and air, out of which the world came into being from the one stroke.
For the cubes and the octahedra and the pyramids and all figures similar to these, out of which fire, air, water, earth are composed, have come into being from the numbers comprehended in that simple stroke of the iota, which is the perfect son of the perfect man.
When, then, he says, Moses speaks of the rod turned in various ways into the plagues that came upon Egypt, which, he says, are allegorized symbols of creation, he does not shape the rod -- which is the one stroke -- into more than ten plagues. This, he says, twofold and varied, is the ten-plagued, cosmic creation.
For all things, when struck, are begotten and bear fruit, just as vines. Man rushes forth from man, he says, and is torn away, being divided by a certain stroke, in order that he may come to be. And if you speak of the law which Moses established, having received it from God, the law is according to that one stroke, the decalogue allegorizing the divine mysteries of the words.
For all the knowledge of the universe, he says, is a ten-plague and a decalogue, which none of those erring about the offspring of the female know. And if you call the whole law the Pentateuch, it is from the pentad comprehended in the one stroke.
The whole, he says, is for those who are not utterly maimed in understanding a mystery, a new and unaging feast, lawful, eternal for our generations, the Passover of the Lord God, kept by those able to see, beginning with the tenth day, which is the beginning of the decad, from which, he says, they reckon. For the monad up to the fourteenth is the sum of the one stroke, a perfect number. For one, two, three, four become ten, which is the one stroke.
From the fourteenth, he says, to the twenty-first, he calls the week that exists in the one stroke of the iota -- the creation of the world -- unleavened in all these things. For what need, he says, would the one stroke have of any substance, such as leaven, from outside, for the Passover of the Lord, the eternal feast which has been given for the generations? For the whole world and all the causes of creation are the Passover, the feast of the Lord.
For God rejoices in the change of creation, which is effected by the ten plagues of the one stroke. This is the rod of Moses given by God, by which it strikes the Egyptians, changing bodies -- just as it changed the hand of Moses, the water into blood, and the rest similarly to these -- such as locusts, which he says is the change of the elements into flesh; for all flesh is grass, he says.
None the less, these men interpret the whole law in some such manner, perhaps following, as I think, those of the Greeks who speak of substance and quality and quantity and relation and place and time and position and action and possession and passion.
Accordingly Monoimus himself, in his letter to Theophrastus, says explicitly: 'Abandoning the search for God and creation and things similar to these, seek him from yourself, and learn who it is that in you simply appropriates all things absolutely as his own, saying:'
'my God, my mind, my understanding, my soul, my body'; and learn from where come grieving and rejoicing and loving and hating, and being awake without wishing it, and dozing without wishing it, and being angry without wishing it, and showing affection without wishing it. And if, he says, you inquire into these things precisely, you will find him -- both one and many -- in yourself, according to that stroke, having found the outlet from yourself.
These, then, are the doctrines of those men, concerning whom we have no need to set forth what the Greeks worried over beforehand, it being self-evident from what is said by them that their system has its composition from the art of geometry and arithmetic, which the disciples of Pythagoras arranged more nobly, as it is possible for those who meet with it to recognize in the places where we have previously narrated concerning all the wisdom of the Greeks. But since the doctrines of Monoimus have also been sufficiently refuted, let us see what devices the rest also contrive for themselves, wishing to exalt a vain name.
Tatian, he too having become a disciple of Justin the martyr, did not hold opinions similar to his teacher, but, attempting certain novelties, said there were certain invisible aeons, mythologizing in a manner similar to the followers of Valentinus. He says that marriage is corruption, similarly to Marcion. He asserts that Adam is not saved, because he became the originator of disobedience. Such, then, are the doctrines of Tatian.
A certain Hermogenes, he too supposing that he held some novel opinion, said that God made all things out of matter that was coeval with him and ungenerated; for it is impossible, he said, for God to make the things that come to be otherwise than out of things that exist. And that God is always Lord and always maker, while matter is always slave and coming-to-be, though not entirely so.
For, matter being always borne about wildly and disorderly, he ordered it by this account: seeing it seething like a liquid set to boil beneath, he separated it part by part, and taking part from the whole he tamed it, but allowed the rest to be borne about disorderly; and this tamed part, he says, is the world, while the wild part remains and is called matter without order. He says this is the substance of all things, bringing it forward as a novel doctrine to his own disciples, not realizing that this myth is Socratic, worked out better by Plato than by Hermogenes.
He confesses that Christ is the Son of the God who created all things, and further agrees that he was born of a virgin and of the Spirit, according to the voice of the gospels; and that after the passion he was raised and appeared to the disciples in the body, and, ascending into the heavens, left his body behind in the sun, while he himself journeyed to the Father.
He uses as testimony, supposing himself supported by the saying, that which the psalmist David speaks: 'In the sun he set his tabernacle, and he, as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, will rejoice as a giant to run his course.' Such, then, were the things Hermogenes attempted.
But certain others, contentious by nature, laymen in knowledge, more quarrelsome in manner, maintain that the Passover must be kept on the fourteenth of the first month according to the ordinance of the law, on whatever day it falls, apprehensively regarding what is written in the law -- that he who does not keep it thus, as it is prescribed, shall be accursed -- not attending to the fact that it was legislated for the Jews who were destined to do away with the true Passover, which has passed over to the nations and is now understood by faith, not observed by the letter. These, giving heed to this one commandment alone,
do not look to what was said by the apostle, that 'I testify to every man who is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law.' But in other respects these men agree with all that has been handed down to the church by the apostles.
Others, still more heretical by nature, Phrygians by race, having been forestalled, have been deceived by little women, certain ones called Priscilla and Maximilla, whom they consider prophetesses, saying that the Paraclete Spirit has taken up residence in them; and they likewise glorify a certain Montanus before them as a prophet. Having innumerable books of theirs, they go astray, neither judging by reason what has been spoken by them nor giving heed to those able to judge, but uncritically devote themselves to faith in them, claiming to have learned through them something more than from the law and the prophets and the gospels.
They glorify these little women above the apostles and every spiritual gift, so that some of them dare to say that something greater than Christ came to be in these women. These confess the Father of all as God and maker of all, similarly to the church, and as much as the gospel testifies concerning Christ, but they innovate fasts and feasts and dry diets and radish-eating, claiming to have been taught these by the women.
But some of them, agreeing with the heresy of the Noetians, say that the Father himself is the Son, and that he came under generation and passion and death. Concerning these I will set forth things more fully again in more detail; for the heresy of these men has become an occasion of evils for many.
We judge, then, that what has been said concerning these is sufficient, having shown to all, through a few words, that their many trifling books and arguments are weak and worth no account; to which those who possess a sound mind ought not to give heed.
Others, calling themselves Encratites, confess concerning God and Christ similarly to the church, but conduct themselves puffed up concerning their way of life, supposing that they glorify themselves through foods, abstaining from things possessing life, drinking only water, forbidding marriage, and adhering to the rest of life with excessive austerity -- such men being judged Cynics rather than Christians, not attending to what was foretold concerning them through the apostle Paul, who, prophesying the things that were to be vainly innovated by certain persons, spoke thus:
'Now the Spirit expressly says: In later times some will depart from the sound doctrine, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, in the hypocrisy of liars, whose own conscience is seared, forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created for reception with thanksgiving by the faithful and those who have come to know the truth, because every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving;'
'for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.' This utterance of blessed Paul, then, is sufficient for the refutation of those who live in this way and pride themselves as righteous, to show that this too is a heresy. But if certain other heresies are named after the Cainites, Ophites, or Nochaites and others of this kind, I do not consider it necessary to set forth what is said or done by them, lest I should even in this regard consider them worthy of any account.
But since what has been said concerning these seems sufficient, let us pass on to the heresy of the Noetians, the cause of all evils, and, having unfolded its root and exposed to view the venom that lies within it, let us bring to a halt those who are being carried away by this error, as by a violent spirit, in the manner of a mountain torrent.