§ 1.
But Ptolemy and his set—he being, as we are told, yet more skilful than their very Teacher—devised and granted to the God who among them is called the Deep, two wives: and these also he called Dispositions, first Thought and then Will: For He first thought of producing (so he speaks); then He willed it. Whereupon, these two dispositions, or rather powers, Thought and Will, being as it were blended with each other, the emanation took place of the Only Begotten and of the Truth, in conjunction: who they say came forth as a sort of types and images of the two dispositions of the Father, the visible of the invisible, of the Will, Mind; of the Thought, Truth: and therefore of the supervening Will the Male is the image, the Female of the unbegotten Thought. The Will then was an actuation1 of the Thought. For although the Thought devised the Emanation, yet it could not alone by itself produce what it devised. But when the power of the Will came on, then it produced what it devised.
§ 2.
Do not these men, dearly beloved, seem to thee rather to have had in their minds the Homeric Jupiter, not sleeping for anxiety, but fall of care as to when he shall be able to honour Achilles and to destroy many of the Greeks,—rather than Him Who is God of all? Who as soon as it is conceived, fulfils also that very thing which He hath willed; both thinking that which He wills, and then willing, when it is thought of: being all Thought, all Will, all Mind, all Light, all Eye, all Hearing, all, a Fountain of every good thing.
§ 3.
Those2 however, who are thought to be more prudent than the last, say that the first Ogdoad was not produced by gradual descent, one Æon by another, but that the emanation of the six Æons was brought forth once for all by the Forefather and His Thought; this he affirms, as though himself had assisted at the birth. And he and his party no longer affirm, as the rest do, The Man and The Church to have been born of The Word and The Life, but the Word and the Life of the Man and The Church: but they affirm this in another sense; viz. What the Fore-Father was minded to produce, this was called the Father: but when what he produced was true, this was called the Truth. When therefore He would manifest Himself, this was called Man, and those whom He reckoned on beforehand, when He produced them, this was named The Church. And The Man spake The Word: this is the first-born Son. And upon the Word follows also The Life. And so the first set of eight was completed.
§ 4.
And there is much dispute too among them concerning our Saviour. For while some say He was made up of all, for which cause He is also called, they say, Accepted3, because all the Pleroma accepted Him: others affirm that He emanated from those ten Æons only, who sprung out of The Word and The Life, and that He is therefore called The Word and The Life, preserving His Progenitors’ names. Others say, He was produced of the twelve Æons, who sprang from The Man and the Church, and therefore that He professes Himself Son of Man, as being a descendant of the Man. While others say that He was framed by Christ and the Holy Ghost, who had been produced for the full confirmation of the Pleroma: and that on this account He is called Christ, preserving the name of His father from whom He emanated. And certain other romancers4 (so to call them) of their number, say that the Forefather of all, and First Beginning, and First Inconceivable, is called Man, and that this is the great and hidden Mystery, namely that the Power which is above all kinds, and includes all creatures, is called Man: and that therefore the Saviour calls Himself Son of Man.