Against Heresies: Book II

2. And, again, how could her Enthymesis, going forth from her along with the passion, have become a separate existence? For Enthymesis (thought) is understood in connection with a person and can never exist on its own. For a bad Enthymesis is destroyed and absorbed by a good one, just as a state of disease is by health. What, then, was the kind of Enthymesis that came before the passion? It was this: to investigate the nature of the Father and to consider His greatness. But what did she later become convinced of, and was thus restored to health? It was this: that the Father is incomprehensible and beyond understanding. It was not a proper feeling that she wanted to know the Father, and because of this, she became susceptible; but when she became convinced that He is unsearchable, she was restored to health. And even Nous himself, who was inquiring into the nature of the Father, stopped his research upon learning that the Father is incomprehensible.

3. How then could the Enthymesis separately conceive passions, which were also her affections? For affection is necessarily connected with an individual; it cannot come into being or exist by itself. This opinion of theirs, however, is not only untenable but also opposed to what was spoken by our Lord: "Seek, and you shall find." For the Lord makes His disciples perfect by their seeking and finding the Father; but their Christ, who is above, has made them perfect by commanding the Æons not to seek the Father, persuading them that, even if they worked hard, they would not find Him. And they declare that they themselves are perfect because they claim to have found their Bythus; while the Æons have been made perfect through this, that He is unsearchable by them.

Since, therefore, Enthymesis herself could not exist separately from the Æon, it is clear that they tell even greater falsehoods about her suffering when they try to separate it from her and claim it was the substance of matter. As if God were not light, and as if no Word existed to convict them and overthrow their wickedness. For it is certainly true that whatever the Æon thought, she also experienced; and what she experienced, she also thought. Her Enthymesis was, according to them, nothing else than the struggle of one trying to understand the incomprehensible. Thus Enthymesis (thought) was the struggle; for she was contemplating the impossible. How then could affection and struggle be separated from Enthymesis and become the substance of such a vast material creation, when Enthymesis herself was the struggle, and the struggle was Enthymesis? Therefore, neither can Enthymesis exist apart from the Æon, nor the affections apart from Enthymesis, possess substance individually. Thus their system once again fails and collapses.

But how did it happen that the Æon was both broken down into parts and became subject to passion? She was undoubtedly of the same substance as the Pleroma; however, the entire Pleroma was of the Father.

Now, any substance, when brought into contact with something of similar nature, will not dissolve into nothing or be in danger of perishing, but will instead continue and grow, like fire in fire, spirit in spirit, and water in water.

In contrast, those of opposite natures suffer, change, and are destroyed when they meet.

Similarly, if there had been a creation of light, it wouldn't suffer passion or face any danger in light like itself, but would rather glow with greater brightness and grow, as the day does from the sun's increasing brilliance; for they say Bythus himself was the image of their father (Sophia). Creatures that are alien and strange to each other, or opposed in nature, encounter danger and are destroyed when they meet, whereas those who are accustomed to each other and harmonious, suffer no harm from being together, and instead find safety and life in such a union.

If, therefore, this Æon was produced by the Pleroma of the same substance as the whole of it, she could never have changed, since she was among beings similar to and familiar with herself, a spiritual essence among those that were spiritual. Fear, terror, passion, dissolution, and similar things may occur through the conflict of opposites among beings like us, who have bodies; but among spiritual beings, and those illuminated with light, no such calamities are possible. These thinkers seem to me to have given their Æon the same kind of passion as a character in the comic poet Menander, who was deeply in love but also hated by his beloved.

Those who created such theories appear to have imagined a human lover’s misfortune rather than a spiritual and divine substance.

Furthermore, to contemplate how to explore the nature of the perfect Father, to desire to exist within Him, and to understand His greatness, would not involve ignorance or passion, especially for a spiritual Æon. Instead, it would lead to perfection, impassibility, and truth. They do not claim that even they, as mere humans, experience confusion by contemplating Him who came before them. Rather, they attain knowledge and understanding of truth by doing so. They assert that the Saviour said, “Seek, and you shall find,” to His disciples with the intention that they should seek Him who is imagined to be above the Maker of all—the ineffable Bythus. They wish to be considered “the perfect” because they have sought and found the perfect One while still on earth. Yet, they state that the Æon within the Pleroma, a purely spiritual being, by seeking the Propator and trying to find a place within His greatness, and longing to understand the truth of the Father, fell into passion. This passion was so significant that, without encountering the Power that upholds everything, she would have dissolved into the general substance of the Æons and ceased to exist personally.

Such presumption is absurd and truly reflects an opinion of men completely lacking the truth. They themselves admit, according to their own system, that this Æon is superior to them and older. They claim to be the fruit of the Enthymesis of that Æon who suffered passion, making this Æon the father of their mother, effectively their grandfather. They, the later grandchildren, believe that the search for the Father brings truth, perfection, stability, and deliverance from unstable matter, reconciling them to the Father. Yet, they say that the same search led their grandfather to ignorance, passion, terror, and confusion, from which they claim the substance of matter was formed. Therefore, to assert that the search for and investigation of the perfect Father, and the desire for communion and union with Him, were beneficial to them, but caused dissolution and destruction to an Æon, from whom they also originate, is completely inconsistent, foolish, and irrational. Those who listen to these teachers are truly blind, possessing blind guides, and justly fall with them into the abyss of ignorance beneath them.