Against Heresies: Book II

THE ACCOUNT GIVEN BY ANTIPHANES: one of the ancient comic poets, in his work Theogony about the origin of all things is much more truthful and pleasing. He describes Chaos as emerging from Night and Silence, then explains that Love sprang from Chaos and Night, and from Love came Light. In his view, from this Light came the rest of the first generation of the gods. He then introduces a second generation of gods and the creation of the world, followed by the formation of humanity by the second order of the gods.

The heretics, adopting this fable as their own, have organized their beliefs around it as if by some natural process, only changing the names, and present the same beginning of the creation of all things. Instead of Night and Silence, they use Bythus and Sige; instead of Chaos, they use Nous; and for Love, who the comic poet says set all other things in order, they substitute the Word. For the primary and greatest gods, they have created the Æons; and as replacements for the secondary gods, they describe a creation by their mother outside of the Pleroma, calling it the second Ogdoad.

They claim, like the referenced writer, that from this Ogdoad came the world's creation and the formation of man, asserting that only they understand these ineffable and unknown mysteries. They take what comedians with clear voices perform in theaters everywhere and adapt it to their own system, teaching it with the same arguments while simply changing the names.

THEY ARE NOT ONLY ACCUSED OF PRESENTING: as if they were their own original ideas, the concepts found among the comic poets, but they also gather ideas expressed by those ignorant of God, known as philosophers. By piecing together a patchwork of poor ideas, they have created a disguise through their clever way of speaking that is not genuinely their own. Indeed, they do introduce a new kind of teaching, as it involves a new method replacing the old. However, it is essentially both outdated and worthless because these opinions have been assembled from ancient beliefs filled with ignorance and irreligion. For example, Thales of Miletus claimed that water was the fundamental principle of all things. Now, it is effectively the same whether we say water or Bythus. The poet Homer believed that Oceanus, along with mother Tethys, was the origin of the gods: this idea has been adapted by these people to Bythus and Sige. Anaximander proposed that infinity is the first principle of all things, containing within it the potential to generate everything, and from this, he claims the vast worlds were formed: this, too, they have reworked and associated with Bythus and their Æons. Anaxagoras, also called “Atheist,” suggested that animals were formed from seeds falling from heaven upon earth. These thinkers have adopted this idea into "the seed" of their Mother, which they identify with themselves, thereby revealing, to those who are sensible, that they are the descendants of the irreligious Anaxagoras.

3. Once more, adopting the ideas of shade and emptiness from Democritus and Epicurus, they have adapted these to their own views, following after those teachers who had already spoken extensively about a vacuum and atoms, one of which they called what is, and the other what is not. Similarly, these people call the things within the Pleroma real existences, just as those philosophers did with atoms, while they claim that those outside the Pleroma have no true existence, just as those philosophers did regarding the vacuum. They have thus placed themselves in this world (since here they are outside of the Pleroma) in a place without existence. Again, when they assert that these things below are images of those with true existence above, they once more clearly echo the teachings of Democritus and Plato. For Democritus was the first to claim that numerous and diverse figures were stamped with the forms of things above and descended from universal space into this world. But Plato speaks of matter, exemplar, and God. Following these distinctions, these people have referred to what he calls ideas and exemplar as the images of things above; while, with a simple change of name, they pride themselves as being the discoverers and creators of this sort of imaginary fiction.

This belief that the Creator formed the world out of pre-existing matter was expressed by Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Plato before them, as we learn they also do under the inspiration of their Mother. Additionally, regarding the idea that everything must eventually return to the elements from which they claim it was formed, and that God is bound by this necessity, unable to grant immortality to the mortal or incorruption to the corruptible, but rather that everything returns to a substance similar in nature to itself, this view is shared by those named Stoics from the portico, and indeed all who are ignorant of God, including poets and historians. These heretics who hold the same system of disbelief have assigned a distinct region to spiritual beings, specifically within the Pleroma, an intermediate space to animal beings, and the material realm to corporeal beings. They claim that God Himself cannot act otherwise, and that every type of substance must return to where it is naturally akin.

IN ADDITION: regarding their claim that the Savior was formed from all the Æons, with each one supposedly contributing their own specific essence to Him, they introduce nothing new that isn't already present in Hesiod's Pandora. What Hesiod says about Pandora, these people suggest about the Savior, presenting Him as Pandoros (All-gifted), as if each of the Æons had given Him what they had in the highest degree. Furthermore, their belief in the indifference of eating meat and other actions, and their notion that due to the nobility of their nature, they cannot be tainted by anything they eat or do, is borrowed from the Cynics, since they are indeed part of the same group as those philosophers. They also attempt to apply to matters of faith the detailed and delicate method of handling questions that is essentially a replication of Aristotle.

THE DESIRE TO ATTRIBUTE THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE TO NUMBERS ORIGINATES FROM THE PYTHAGOREANS: They were the first to propose numbers as the fundamental principle of everything, describing this principle as both equal and unequal. From this duality, they believed that both tangible and intangible things originated. They asserted that one set of first principles led to the substance of things, and another to their form, just as a statue consists of its metal and its unique shape. The heretics have adapted this idea to elements outside of the Pleroma. The Pythagoreans stated that the principle of intellect is proportional to the energy with which the mind, as a recipient of the understandable, conducts its inquiries until it is eventually resolved into the Indivisible and One. They also claimed that Hen, or One, is the primary principle of all things and the essence of everything that has been formed. From this, the Dyad, the Tetrad, the Pentad, and the multiple generations of other numbers emerged. Heretics repeat these ideas word for word, relating them to their concepts of the Pleroma and Bythus. They also try to promote those combinations that arise from unity. Marcus claims these ideas as his own, as if he has discovered something more innovative than others, while he merely presents the Tetrad of Pythagoras as the originating principle and mother of all things.

7. But I will simply say, in response to these men: Did all those mentioned, with whom you have been shown to agree in expression, know or not know the truth? If they knew it, then the descent of the Savior into this world was unnecessary. Why, in that case, did He come down? Was it to bring the truth, which was already known, to those who already knew it? On the other hand, if these men did not know it, then how can you, while expressing yourselves in the same terms as those who did not know the truth, boast that you alone possess knowledge above all things, even though those ignorant of God also claim it? Thus, by completely twisting language, they call ignorance of the truth knowledge: and Paul rightly says of them that they use "novelties of words of false knowledge." For their knowledge is indeed found to be false. However, if they shamelessly claim that men did not know the truth, but that their Mother, the seed of the Father, revealed the mysteries of truth through such men, just as through the prophets, while the Demiurge was unaware, then I respond, first, that the things predicted were not beyond comprehension; the men themselves understood what they were saying, as did their disciples, and those who came after them. Secondly, if either the Mother or her seed knew and proclaimed the things of the truth (and the Father is truth), then according to their theory, the Savior spoke falsely when He said, "No one knows the Father but the Son," unless they indeed claim that their seed or Mother is No-one.

THUS: by attributing human emotions to their Æons and using language that aligns with many who are unaware of God, they have managed to plausibly draw some people away from the truth. They lead them on with expressions they are familiar with, discussing topics like the creation of the Word of God, Zoe, and Nous, and introducing a sequence of emanations of the Deity as if bringing them into the world. The ideas they propose, which lack plausibility or grandeur, are nothing but lies from start to finish.

Just like those who use familiar food to lure and capture animals, gradually drawing them in with what they are used to until they are trapped, and then subject them to harsh captivity and force them wherever desired, these men also gradually and subtly persuade others with plausible speeches to accept the aforementioned emission. They then introduce inconsistent ideas and unexpected forms of the remaining emissions.

For example, they claim that ten Æons were sent forth by Logos and Zoe, while twelve came from Anthropos and Ecclesia, though they have no proof, testimony, likelihood, or anything of that kind to support these claims.

With equal foolishness and boldness, they wish people to believe that Bythus and Mixis, Ageratos and Henosis, Autophyes and Hedone, Acinetos and Syncrasis, Monogenes and Macaria were sent forth by Logos and Zoe, being Æons.

Furthermore, they assert that in a similar way, Paracletus and Pistis, Patricos and Elpis, Metricos and Agape, Ainos and Synesis, Ecclesiasticus and Macariotes, Theletos and Sophia were sent forth by Anthropos and Ecclesia, also being Æons.

THE PASSIONS AND ERROR OF SOPHIA: and how she risked perishing through her investigation of the nature of the Father, as they say, and what happened outside of the Pleroma, and from what kind of defect they teach that the Maker of the world came about, I have explained in the previous book, carefully describing the opinions of these heretics. I have also detailed their views regarding Christ, whom they describe as being produced after all these events, and also regarding Soter, who, according to them, originated from those Æons formed within the Pleroma. I have had to mention their names now so that the absurdity of their falsehood can be made clear, as well as the confusing nature of the names they have invented. They themselves detract from the dignity of their Æons by using a multitude of such names. They propose names that seem plausible and credible to the heathen, similar to those who are known as their twelve gods, claiming even these to be images of their twelve Æons. But the images they refer to can produce names more appropriate and more powerful through their meanings to indicate divinity than those of the imagined prototypes.