Chapter 17

§ 1.

I have a mind also to explain to thee, how they affirm the creation itself to have been wrought by the Demiurge, after the image of the things invisible, through the agency of his Mother, as though himself knew it not. First they say that the four elements, fire, water, earth, air, were produced as an image of the first quaternion on high: and that their operations being counted with them, I mean hot and cold, dry and moist, form an exact image of the Ogdoad. Next they enumerate ten Powers, as follows: first seven circular bodies which they also call Heavens, then the Circle which includes them, which moreover they name the eighth Heaven; and besides these the Sun and the Moon. These, being ten in number, they say are images of the invisible Decad, which proceeded from the Word and the Life. And that the Dodecad is signified by the Circle called the Zodiac: the twelve signs most evidently shadowing out the Dodecad, the daughter of the Man and the Church. And Saturn, they say, being fastened in a contrary direction to the motion of the Universe (which is most rapid) gravitating towards the very bottom, and counter-balancing the swiftness of the others by his own slowness, so as to accomplish in thirty years his circuit from sign to sign:—they say he is the image of Order, who compasses about their mother with the thirty names¹. And that the Moon again, taking thirty days to perform the circuit of her proper heaven, by those days figures out the number of the thirty Æons. And that the Sun too, revolving in twelve months, and so completing his circular restitution of things, doth by his twelve months declare the Dodecad. And that the days, having their measure of twelve hours, are a type of that Twelve which is not apparent. Yea, and the hour also they observe, being the twelfth part of the day, to be furnished with thirty parts, for the image’ sake of the Thirty. And that the Circumference of the Zodiac itself is of 360 parts, each sign having thirty parts. And thus by the circle also the image of the connexion of the twelve with the thirty, they say, is preserved. And again remarking that the earth is divided into twelve climates, they are confident that it too, receiving in each climate a virtue perpendicularly from the Heavens, and bearing children such as correspond to the power which sends down that influence, is a very clear type of the Twelve and the offspring thereof.

§ 2.

They add moreover, that the Demiurge, desiring to imitate the infinity, eternity, freedom from space and time, of the Supernal Ogdoad, and not being able to express its perseverance and eternity, because he is himself the fruit of a Defect, distributed its Eternity into times and seasons and numbers of many years, thinking by the number of his times to imitate the infinitude thereof. And hence, they say, the truth having escaped him, falsehood followed after: and therefore that his work will admit of dissolution, when the times are fullfilled.