Against Heresies: Book II

HOW: again, could either the angels or the Creator of the world have been unaware of the Supreme God, seeing they were His property and His creatures, and were contained by Him? He might indeed have been invisible to them because of His superiority, but He could by no means have been unknown to them because of His providence. Even though it is true, as they claim, that they were very far separated from Him due to their inferior nature, as His dominion extended over all of them, they were obliged to know their Ruler and to be aware of this in particular: that He who created them is Lord of all. For since His invisible essence is mighty, it grants all a profound mental intuition and perception of His most powerful, indeed, omnipotent greatness. Therefore, although “no one knows the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal Him,” all beings do know this one fact at least, because reason, implanted in their minds, moves them and reveals to them the truth that there is one God, the Lord of all.

2. And for this reason, everything has been generally accepted to be under the control of Him who is called the Most High and the Almighty. By calling on Him, even before the coming of our Lord, people were saved from the most wicked spirits, all kinds of demons, and every sort of rebellious power. This happened not because earthly spirits or demons had seen Him, but because they knew of the existence of Him who is God over all. At His invocation, they trembled, as does every creature, principality, power, and every being with energy under His rule. Similarly, don't those who live under the Roman Empire, though they have never seen the emperor and are separated from him by land and sea, understand well who holds the main power in the state due to experiencing his rule? How then could it be that those angels who were greater than us by nature, or even He whom they call the Creator of the world, did not know the Almighty, when even animals tremble and submit at the invocation of His name? And although they have not seen Him, everything is subject to the name of our Lord, and thus must also be to the One who made and established everything by His word, since it was He who formed the world. And for this reason, the Jews even now drive out demons using this very invocation, because all beings fear the invocation of Him who created them.

IF: then, they hesitate to claim that the angels are more irrational than animals, they will find that it was necessary for these beings, even though they had not seen Him who is God over all, to recognize His power and sovereignty. For it will seem truly absurd if they claim that they, who live on earth, know Him who is God over all, even though they have never seen Him, but won't allow Him who, according to their belief, created them and the entire world, although He resides in the heights and above the heavens, to know the things that they themselves, though they live below, are familiar with. This is the case unless perhaps they believe that Bythus lives in Tartarus below the earth, and that for this reason they have gained knowledge of Him before those angels who reside on high. Thus, they hurl themselves into such a depth of madness as to declare that the Creator of the world lacks understanding. They are truly deserving of pity, as they foolishly claim that He (the Creator of the world) neither knew His Mother, nor her offspring, nor the Pleroma of the Æons, nor the Propator, nor what the things were which He made; but that these are mere reflections of the things within the Pleroma, with the Saviour having secretly worked so that they would be formed in such a way [by the unaware Demiurge], in honor of the things above.