Against Heresies: Book II

THE REMARKS I MADE A LITTLE WHILE AGO ARE SUITABLE IN RESPONSE TO THOSE WHO CLAIM THAT THIS WORLD WAS FORMED OUTSIDE OF THE PLEROMA: or under a “good God;” and such people, along with the Father they speak of, will be completely cut off from that which is outside the Pleroma, where they must ultimately find rest. In response to those who argue that this world was created by certain other beings within the territory contained by the Father, all the points now noted will show their absurdities and inconsistencies.

They will be forced to either acknowledge that all things within the Father are clear, complete, and energetic, or to accuse the light of the Father as if He couldn't illuminate everything. Alternatively, if a portion of their Pleroma is described this way, the entire Pleroma must be admitted to be empty, chaotic, and full of darkness. They accuse all other created things of being merely temporary, or if eternal, still material.

Yet these (the Æons) should be considered beyond such accusations, since they are within the Pleroma, or the charges would equally apply to the entire Pleroma.

Thus, the Christ they speak of is revealed to be the author of ignorance. According to their claims, after giving form in terms of substance to the Mother they imagine, He cast her out of the Pleroma, effectively cutting her off from knowledge. So, the one who separated her from knowledge actually caused ignorance in her. How then could the same person give the gift of knowledge to the rest of the Æons, who were formed before Him, while also being the author of ignorance to His Mother? For He excluded her from knowledge when He cast her out of the Pleroma.

2.

MOREOVER: if they define being inside and outside the Pleroma as meaning knowledge and ignorance, as some of them do (since someone with knowledge is within that which knows), then they must necessarily admit that the Saviour Himself (whom they call All Things) was in a state of ignorance. For they claim that when He came forth outside of the Pleroma, He gave form to their Mother [Achamoth]. If, then, they assert that whatever is outside the Pleroma is ignorant of all things, and if the Saviour went forth to give form to their Mother, then He was beyond the reach of all knowledge; that is, He was in ignorance.

How then could He give knowledge to her when He Himself was beyond the reach of knowledge? For they declare we, too, are outside the Pleroma because we are outside the knowledge they have. And furthermore: If the Saviour actually went beyond the Pleroma to seek the sheep which was lost, but the Pleroma equals knowledge, then He placed Himself beyond the reach of knowledge, that is, in ignorance. For they must either agree that what is outside the Pleroma is so in a physical sense, in which case all the previous points will challenge them; or if they talk about what is inside regarding knowledge, and what is outside in respect to ignorance, then their Saviour, and Christ long before Him, must have been in ignorance, because they went beyond the Pleroma, that is, beyond the reach of knowledge, to give form to their Mother.

THESE ARGUMENTS CAN SIMILARLY BE ADAPTED TO ADDRESS ANYONE WHO CLAIMS IN ANY WAY THAT THE WORLD WAS CREATED EITHER BY ANGELS OR BY ANYONE OTHER THAN THE TRUE GOD: For the accusations they make against the Demiurge, and those things which were made material and temporal, will ultimately reflect back on the Father; if indeed the things formed within the Pleroma began to dissolve over time, according to the permission and favor of the Father. The immediate Creator, then, is not the true Author of this work, thinking He created it very good, but rather He who allows and approves of the creations of defect, and the works of error having a place among His own possessions, and that temporal things should be mixed with eternal, corruptible with incorruptible, and those which partake of error with those which belong to truth.

If these things were formed without the permission or approval of the Father of all, then that Being must be more powerful, stronger, and more kingly, who made these things within a territory that rightfully belongs to Him (the Father), and did so without His permission. If, as some suggest, their Father permitted these things without approving them, then He granted permission due to some necessity, either being able to prevent this from happening or not.

But if He could not stop it, then He is weak and powerless; while, if He could, He is deceitful, a hypocrite, and a slave to necessity, since He does not agree with such a course and yet allows it as if He did agree.

Allowing error to arise initially, and continue to grow, He tries to destroy it later, when many have already suffered greatly due to the original defect.

IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE: however, to say of Him who is God over all, since He is free and independent, that He was a slave to necessity, or that anything happens with His permission but against His desire; otherwise, they will make necessity greater and more authoritative than God, since that which has the most power is superior to all others. And He should, at the very start, have eliminated the causes of the imagined necessity and not allowed Himself to be compelled to yield to that necessity by permitting anything beyond what was fitting for Him. For it would have been much better, more consistent, and more God-like, to eliminate at the beginning the principle of this kind of necessity, than to later attempt, as if moved by regret, to remove the outcomes of necessity when they had developed to such an extent. And if the Father of all is a slave to necessity and must yield to fate, while He unwillingly tolerates the things that are done, but is at the same time powerless to oppose necessity and fate (like the Homeric Jupiter, who says of necessity, “I have willingly given thee, yet with an unwilling mind”), then, according to this reasoning, the Bythus of whom they speak will be found to be the slave of necessity and fate.