Furthermore, they teach that John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad in these very words, saying as follows: "John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set forth the origin of all things—according to which the Father brought forth everything—posits a certain Beginning, namely that which was first begotten by God, whom he has also called the Only-begotten Son and God, in whom the Father brought forth all things seminally. By him, he says, was the Logos brought forth, and in him the whole substance of the Aeons, which the Logos himself afterwards shaped. Since, then, he speaks of the first generation, he rightly makes his teaching begin from the Beginning, that is, from God and the Logos. And he speaks thus: 'In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God; the same was in the beginning with God.' Having first distinguished the three—God, Beginning, and Logos—he again unites them, in order that he may show both the bringing-forth of each of them, of the Son and of the Logos, and their union with one another as well as with the Father. For in the Father, and from the Father, is the Beginning; and in the Beginning, and from the Beginning, is the Logos. Rightly, then, did he say, 'In the beginning was the Logos,' for he was in the Son; 'and the Logos was with God,' for the Beginning also was so; 'and the Logos was God,' as follows—for that which is begotten of God is God; 'the same was in the beginning with God.' He showed the order of the bringing-forth: 'all things were made through him, and without him was nothing made,' for the Logos became the cause of form and generation to all the Aeons that came after him. But he indicated further: 'The whole,' he said, 'was made through him, but life was in him.' This life, then, which came to be in him, is more closely akin to him than the things made through him; for it co-exists with him and bears fruit through him. For since he adds, 'and the life was the light of men,' having just spoken of Man, he indicated the Church homonymously with Man, so that by the one name he might disclose the fellowship of the conjunction; for from the Logos and Life come Man and Church. And he called Life the light of men, because they are enlightened by her—that is, formed and made manifest. This Paul also says: 'For everything that is made manifest is light.' Since, then, Life manifested and begot both Man and the Church, she is said to be their light. Plainly, then, John has disclosed through these words, among other things, also the second Tetrad: Logos and Life, Man and Church. But indeed he also indicated the first Tetrad; for in expounding concerning the Savior, and saying that everything outside the Pleroma was shaped through him, he says that he is the fruit of the whole Pleroma. For he has also called him the light that shines in the darkness and was not overtaken by it, since, having fitted together all the things that came from the passion, he was unknown to it. And he calls him Son, and Truth, and Life, and the Logos made flesh; 'whose glory,' he says, 'we beheld, and his glory was such as that of the Only-begotten, given to him by the Father, full of grace and truth.' And he speaks thus: 'And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.' Accurately, then, he indicated also the first Tetrad, naming the Father, and Grace, and the Only-begotten, and Truth. Thus has John spoken concerning the first Ogdoad, the mother of all the Aeons. For he named the Father, and Grace, and the Only-begotten, and Truth, and the Logos, and Life, and Man, and..."
You see, beloved, the method by which those who use it deceive themselves, doing violence to the Scriptures and attempting to establish their own fabrication out of them. For this reason I have set down their very words, that from them you may perceive the cunning of their method and the wickedness of their error. For, in the first place, if John had set out to indicate the upper Ogdoad, he would have kept the order of the bringing-forth, and would have placed the first Tetrad—which is, as they say, the most venerable—first among the names, and would then have joined the second to it, so that through the order of the names the order of the Ogdoad might be shown; nor would he, after so great an interval, as though he had forgotten and then recalled it, have mentioned the first Tetrad at the very end. Then again, wishing to signify the conjunctions, he would not have omitted the name of the Church; but either, in the case of the rest of the conjunctions too, he would have been content with naming the males, since the females could likewise be understood along with them—so that he might have preserved the unity throughout—or, if he enumerated the consorts of the others, he would also have indicated the consort of Man, and would not have left you to take her name from divination. Manifest, therefore, is the falsification of their exposition. For while John proclaims one God Almighty and one Only-begotten Christ Jesus, through whom he says all things were made—declaring this one to be the Son, the Logos of God, this one the Only-begotten, this one the Maker of all, this one the true Light that enlightens every man, this one the Maker of the world, this one as having come to his own, this very one as having become flesh and dwelt among us—these men, perverting the exposition according to plausibility, want the Only-begotten to be one, according to the bringing-forth, whom they also call Beginning; and they want the Savior to be another, and the Logos, son of the Only-begotten, another, and the Christ—brought forth for the setting-right of the Pleroma—another; and lifting each of these named things from the truth, and abusing the names, they have transferred them to their own hypothesis, so that according to them in all these passages John makes no mention of the Lord Jesus Christ. For if he named Father, and Grace, and Only-begotten, and Truth, and Logos, and Life, and Man, and Church, then according to their hypothesis he was speaking of the first Ogdoad, in which there was as yet no Jesus, as yet no Christ, the teacher of John. But that it was not concerning their conjunctions that the Apostle spoke, but concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he also knows to be the Logos of God, he himself has made plain. For recapitulating concerning the Logos which he had previously spoken of above 'in the beginning,' he further explains: 'And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us.' But according to their hypothesis it was not the Logos that became flesh, for he never even went outside the Pleroma; rather it was the Savior of the dispensation, who was later than the Logos...
Learn, then, you foolish ones, that Jesus, who suffered for us, who took up his dwelling among us—this very one is the Logos of God. For if some other one of the Aeons had become flesh for the sake of your salvation, it would have been reasonable for the Apostle to be speaking of another. But if it is the Logos of the Father who descended that is also the one who ascended—the Only-begotten Son of the only God, made flesh for the sake of men according to the good pleasure of the Father—then he has composed his words not concerning any other, nor concerning the Ogdoad, but concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. For according to them the Logos did not become flesh as a primary matter. Rather they say that the Savior put on a psychic body, prepared out of the dispensation by an ineffable providence, in order to become visible and tangible. But the flesh is that ancient formation, made by God out of the dust according to Adam, which John indicated the Logos of God truly to have become. And so their first and primordial Ogdoad is dissolved. For since one and the same is shown to be Logos, and Only-begotten, and Life, and Light, and Savior, and Christ, and Son of God, and this same one made flesh for us, the tabernacle-pitching of the Ogdoad is dissolved. And once this is dissolved, their whole hypothesis collapses—the hypothesis which, dreaming falsely, they run down the Scriptures to support, having fabricated their own hypothesis. Then, gathering up words and names lying scattered here and there, they transfer them, as we have said before, from their natural sense into one contrary to nature; doing the same as those who set themselves any chance subjects and then try to elaborate them out of the poems of Homer, so that the more inexperienced suppose that Homer composed his verses upon that subject just improvised, and many are carried away by the well-knit sequence of the verses into thinking that Homer may indeed have composed them so. As does the one who writes thus, in Homeric lines, about Heracles being sent by Eurystheus after the dog in Hades (for nothing prevents us from citing these too by way of example, since the attempt is alike and the same in both cases): 'So saying, he sent forth from his house, groaning heavily, the man Heracles, skilled in great deeds, did Eurystheus, son of Sthenelus, son of Perseus, to bring from Erebus the dog of hateful Hades. And he went, like a mountain-bred lion confident in his strength, swiftly through the city; and all his friends followed after, both maidens and youths and much-enduring old men, weeping bitterly, as for one going to his death. And Hermes sent him forth, and grey-eyed Athena; for she knew in her heart her brother, how he toiled.' Who among the unsophisticated would not be carried away by these verses, and suppose that Homer composed them thus upon this subject? But one experienced in the Homeric subject will recognize the verses, but will not recognize the subject, knowing that one part of them was spoken of Odysseus, another of Heracles himself, another of Priam, another of Menelaus and Agamemnon. And lifting them out and restoring each to its own place, he will make their fabricated subject vanish. So too the one who holds within himself the rule of the truth unswerving, which he received through baptism, will recognize the names from the Scriptures, and the expressions, and the parables, but will not recognize this blasphemous subject of theirs. For even if he recognizes the gems, yet he will not accept the fox in place of the royal image; but restoring each of the things said to its own order, and fitting it to the body of the truth, he will lay bare and show to be unsubstantial their fabrication. But since this stage-play lacks the redemption (apolytrosis), so that one who has rehearsed their very mime may bring in the refuting argument, we have thought it well first to show in what points the very fathers of this myth differ from one another, as being from different spirits of error. For from this, even before the demonstration, it will be possible to discern accurately the truth proclaimed by the Church as firm, and the falsehood counterfeited by these men.
This Ptolemy, then, and those with him, have advanced as more 'expert' for you than their own teacher; for he devised and bestowed two consorts upon God—upon the one whom they call Bythos. These he also called dispositions, namely Thought (Ennoia) and Will (Thelema). For first, he says, God conceived (in thought) to bring forth, then he willed. So that from these two dispositions, or powers, of Thought and Will, blended into one another, there resulted the bringing-forth of the Only-begotten and Truth.
Those of Ptolemy's school say that he (Bythos) has two consorts, which they also call dispositions, namely Thought (Ennoia) and Will (Thelesis). For first, as they say, he conceived to bring something forth, and then he willed. Therefore, from these two dispositions and powers, that of Thought and that of Will, blended as it were into one another, the bringing-forth of the Only-begotten and of Truth came about according to conjunction. As types and images of the two dispositions of the Father there came forth, from the invisible things, visible ones: of Will, Truth; and of Thought, Mind (Nous). And through this Will, the male became the image of the unbegotten Thought, and the female the image of the Will; Will, then, became a power of Thought. For Thought indeed conceived the bringing-forth, but could not by herself bring forth what she conceived. But when the power of Will came upon her, then what she had conceived was brought forth. (And so types and images of the two dispositions of the Father passed forth from the invisible things into visible ones: of Will, Mind; and of Thought, Truth; and on account of this supervening Will, the masculine became the image of the unbegotten Thought, the feminine; since Will, as it were, became a power of Thought. For Thought indeed always conceived the bringing-forth, but could not by herself bring it forth; but when the power of Will came, then what was conceived was brought forth.) Or rather (this is said) of the Lord of all things, who, at the very moment of being conceived, has also accomplished that which he willed; and at the very moment of willing, also conceives that which he willed—conceiving that which he also wills, and willing then, at the moment he conceives: being wholly Thought, wholly Will, wholly Mind, wholly light, wholly eye, wholly hearing, wholly the fountain of all good things.
(They say that) the first Ogdoad was not brought forth by way of descent, one Aeon by another, but that the bringing-forth of the six Aeons was produced all together and at once by the Forefather (Propator) and his Thought (Ennoia)—as he himself, having served as midwife, asserts. And no longer (do they derive), from Logos and Life, Man and Church, and from Man (the rest), as the others do; but from Man and Church (they say) Logos and Life were produced—he himself and his followers (so teach), but in a different manner. For they say this: that what the Forefather conceived to bring forth was called Father; and since what he brought forth was true, this was named Truth; and when he willed to manifest himself, this was called Man; and those whom he had thought of beforehand when he brought forth, this was named Church. And the Man (brought forth) the Logos—this is the firstborn Son; and Life follows upon the Logos; and thus the first Ogdoad was completed.
There is also much dispute among them concerning the Savior. For some say that he came to be out of all (the Aeons); and for this reason he is also called "Well-pleasing" (Eudoketos), because the whole Pleroma was well pleased through him to glorify the Father. Others say that he was brought forth from the ten Aeons alone, those from Logos and Life, and that he preserves the ancestral names. Others (say he was brought forth) from the twelve Aeons that came from Man and Church; and for this reason he confesses himself to be Son of Man, as a descendant of Man. Others say that he came to be from Christ and the Holy Spirit, who were brought forth for the support of the Pleroma; and for this reason he is called Christ, preserving the appellation of the Father, from whom he was brought forth. And still others among them, so to speak, certain rhapsodists, say that the Forefather of all is called Fore-beginning (Proarche) and Fore-ruler (Proarchos) and Inconceivable Man (Proanennoetos Anthropos); and that this is the great and hidden mystery: that the power above all things and comprehensive of all things is called Man; and for this reason the Savior calls himself Son of Man.
A certain Marcus drew to himself women and men who had been led astray—both deceived (women) and deceived (men)—being supposed, wretched man, to be a corrector of the aforementioned impostors, while being himself most expert in magical trickery. Having deceived all the aforementioned men and women into giving heed to him as the most 'gnostic,' and (as having) the greatest power from the invisible and unnameable regions—(Another teacher of theirs, Marcus, expert in magic, deceived many, partly through the trickery of gifts and incantations, partly also through demons. He used to say that in himself was the greatest power from the invisible and unnameable regions. And indeed, often taking a cup, etc.)—he has truly been shown to be a forerunner of the Antichrist. For mixing the tricks of Anaxilaus with the cunning of the so-called magicians, by means of these he produces illusions and works his magic, and surrounds with astonishment those who see and are persuaded by him. And those who behold these things, done by sleight of hand, suppose that certain powers are being accomplished in his hands. For they too, having lost their mind, do not see, not knowing how to test, that the constitution of his trickery is brought about, so to speak, by magic.
Pretending to give thanks over cups mixed with wine, and prolonging at greater length the word of invocation, he causes them to appear purple and red, so that it seems that the Grace from the regions above all things drops her own blood into that cup through his invocation, and that those present are filled with longing to taste of that draught, that the Grace invoked by this magician may rain down also into them. And again, handing mixed cups to women, he bids them give thanks while he stands by. And when this is done, he himself, bringing forward another cup much larger than that over which the deceived woman gave thanks, and holding it, and pouring over into it from the smaller cup (the one over which the woman had given thanks) into the one prepared by himself, says meanwhile thus: "May the Grace that is before all things, the inconceivable and ineffable, fill your inner man and multiply in you her knowledge, sowing the grain of mustard seed in the good ground." And having said some such things, and having driven the wretched woman to frenzy, he appears as a wonder-worker, when the larger cup is filled from the smaller, so that it even overflows from it. And doing some other things similar to these, he has deceived many and led them away after himself. And it is likely that he has even some demon as an attendant, through whom he himself seems to prophesy, and causes to prophesy as many as he deems worthy to be partakers of his grace. For he busies himself especially about women, and of these the well-dressed, the purple-robed, and the wealthiest, whom he often tries to draw to himself, fawning upon them and saying: "I want to impart to you of my grace, since the Father of all things continually beholds your angel before his face; and the place of greatness is in us—we must establish ourselves into one. Receive first from me, and through me, the grace. Make yourself ready, as a bride awaiting her bridegroom, that you may be what I am, and I what you are. Establish in your bridal-chamber the seed of light. Receive from me the bridegroom, and give him room, and find room in him. Behold, grace has descended upon you; open your mouth and prophesy." And when the woman answers, "I have never prophesied, and I do not know how to prophesy," then, making certain invocations a second time to astound the deluded woman, he says to her: "Open your mouth, speak whatever you please, and you shall prophesy." And she, puffed up and beguiled by the things aforesaid, her soul inflamed by the expectation that she is about to prophesy, her heart throbbing more than it ought, ventures to speak, and speaks foolish and random things, all emptily and rashly, as one heated by an empty spirit—(just as our better said concerning such people, that "a soul heated by empty air is rash and shameless")—and from then on she reckons herself a prophetess, and gives thanks to Marcus, who imparted of his own grace to her; and she tries to repay him, not only by the giving of her possessions (whence too he has amassed a great quantity of money), but also by the fellowship of her body, eager to be united with him in every way, that she may descend with him into the One.
But already certain of the more faithful women, those who have the fear of God and were not deceived, whom he attempted to lead astray in the same way as the rest, bidding them prophesy—these, having blown upon him in disgust and pronounced a curse upon him, separated themselves from such a company; for they knew accurately that prophesying does not come to men through Marcus the magician, but that those to whom God sends his grace from above, these have their prophecy as a gift from God, and then they speak where and when God wills, but not when Marcus commands. For that which commands is greater and more authoritative than that which is commanded, since the one leads and the other is subordinate. If, then, Marcus commands—or someone else, as these people are always wont to play at the banquets of their lot, and to bid one another prophesy, and to prophesy to themselves according to their own desires—then the one commanding will be greater and more authoritative than the prophetic Spirit, being a man, which is impossible. But such spirits as are commanded by them, and speak whenever they themselves wish, are unsound and feeble, yet bold and shameless, sent forth by Satan for the deception and ruin of those who do not keep firm the faith which they received from the beginning through the Church.
That this Marcus produces in some of the women, if not in all, love-philters and aphrodisiac charms—so as even to outrage their bodies—these women, having often turned back to the Church of God, have confessed: both that they were bodily corrupted by him, and that they had loved him most passionately; so that even a certain deacon of ours in Asia, having received him into his house, fell into this misfortune, his wife being beautiful in form, and being corrupted both in mind and in body by this magician, and having followed after him for a long time. Then, after the brethren with much labor had converted her back, she spent her whole time in confession, mourning and lamenting over the corruption which she had suffered at the hands of the magician.
And certain of his disciples too, going about in the same regions, deceiving and corrupting many little women, proclaim themselves to be perfect, as though no one were able to be made equal to the greatness of their knowledge—not even if you should name Paul, nor Peter, nor any other of the Apostles; but (they claim) that they have known more than all, and that they alone have drunk down the greatness of the knowledge of the ineffable power. And (they say) that they are on a height above every power; and therefore they freely do all things, having fear of nothing in anything. For through the redemption (apolytrosis) they become beyond the grasp and invisible to the judge. And if he should lay hold of them, then, standing before him with the redemption, they would say these words: "O assessor of God and of the mystical Silence (Sige) that is before the ages of ages—you whom the Greatnesses (Megethe), ever beholding the face of the Father, use as a guide and conductor, drawing up on high their forms—the forms which that great-daring one (the Mother), having phantasized them, brought forth as us, the images, on account of the goodness of the Forefather, having then the remembrance of the things above as a dream: behold, the judge is near, and the herald bids me make my defense; but do you, as one who knows the affairs of both, present to the judge the word on behalf of us both, as being one." And the Mother, as soon as she hears these things, puts upon them the Homeric helmet of Hades, so that they may invisibly escape the judge; and straightway snatching them up, she leads them into the bridal-chamber and gives them over to their own bridegrooms.
By saying and doing such things, these men have deceived many women even in our own regions of the Rhone valley—women whose conscience has been seared. Some of them confess publicly, but others are ashamed to do so and, in silence, having quietly given up all hope of the life of God, some have utterly fallen away, while others waver between the two and suffer what the proverb describes, being "neither outside nor inside." This is the fruit they have to show for the seed of the children of (their so-called) knowledge.