Against Heresies: Book IV
Chapter 19: Earthly Things Can Represent Heavenly Things, But the Latter Can't Represent Higher Unknown Entities; Nor Can We, Without Being Utterly Insane, Insist That God is Only Known to Us as the Representation of an Unknown Superior Being
The people received gifts, offerings, and all the sacrifices as a representation, as was shown to Moses on the mount, from the one and same God whose name is now glorified in the Church among all nations. It is fitting that these earthly things spread around us should be types of the celestial, both created by the same God. For He could only make an image of spiritual things [to suit our understanding] in this way. But to claim that the super-celestial and spiritual things, which are invisible and ineffable to us, are types of celestial things and of another Pleroma, and to say that God is the image of another Father, is to act as wanderers from the truth and as utterly foolish and stupid people. For, as I have repeatedly shown, such people will find it necessary to continually seek out types of types and images of images and will never be able to focus their minds on one true God. Their imaginations go beyond God, having in their hearts surpassed the Master Himself, being indeed in thought elevated and exalted above Him, but in reality turning away from the true God.
To these individuals, one might justly say (as Scripture itself suggests), To what height above God do you elevate your imaginations, O you rashly elated people? You have heard "that the heavens are measured in the palm of His hand": tell me the measure, and recount the endless multitude of cubits, explain to me the fullness, the breadth, the length, the height, the beginning and end of the measurement — things which the human heart does not understand, nor can it comprehend.
For the heavenly storehouses are indeed vast: God cannot be measured in the heart, and incomprehensible is He in the mind; He who holds the earth in the hollow of His hand. Who perceives the measure of His right hand? Who knows His finger? Or who understands His hand — that hand which measures immensity; that hand which, by its own measure, spreads out the measure of the heavens, and which contains in its hollow the earth with the abysses; which encompasses within itself the breadth, and length, and the depths below, and the height above of the entire creation; which is seen, which is heard and understood, and which is invisible? And for this reason, God is "above all principality, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named," of all things which have been created and established.
He is the one who fills the heavens, and sees the abysses, who is also present with each of us. For He says, “Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off? If any person is hidden in secret places, shall I not see them?” For His hand grasps all things, and it is that hand which illuminates the heavens, and also gives light to the things under the heavens, and examines the hearts, is also present in hidden things, and in our secret thoughts, and does openly nourish and preserve us.
But if people do not understand the fullness and greatness of His hand, how can anyone comprehend or know in their heart such a great God? Yet, as if they have now measured and thoroughly investigated Him, and explored Him on every side, they pretend that beyond Him there exists another Pleroma of Æons and another Father; certainly not looking up to heavenly things, but truly descending into a profound abyss of madness. They claim that their Father extends only to the border of those things beyond the Pleroma, while, on the other hand, the Demiurge does not reach as far as the Pleroma; thus, they portray neither of them as being perfect and encompassing all things. For the former will lack in regard to the whole world formed outside of the Pleroma, and the latter in respect of that ideal world which was formed within the Pleroma, and therefore neither can be the God of all. But that no one can fully declare the goodness of God from the things made by Him is clear to everyone. And that His greatness is not lacking but contains all things and extends even to us and is with us, everyone will admit who holds worthy views of God.