Chapter 9

§ 1.

Thou seest, dearly beloved, their craft, which they that use deceive themselves, dealing rudely with the Scriptures, in their endeavours to make good out of them their own fiction. And this is why I have adduced their very words, that by them thou mightest discern their cunning craftiness, and wicked misleading.

For, first, had it been John’s purpose to speak indirectly of their Eight that are on high, he would have kept the order of the emanation; and the first Quaternion, being, by their statement, the most venerable, he would have set down in his first enumeration; and so would have subjoined the second; that by the order of the names, the order of the Eight might be indicated. And he would not, after so great an interval, as though upon forgetting and afterwards recollecting, have mentioned the first quaternion in the very conclusion.

Next, had he really meant to signify their Combinations, he would not have left out the name of the Church also: but would either have contented himself in the other pairs, with naming the Males, the others being to be equally understood, that the Unify might be kept by him in all things¹. Or, if he had reckoned up the partners of the rest, he would have indicated also the Man’s partner, and would not have left us to find out her name by divination.

§ 2.

Manifest then is the perversity of their exposition. For whereas John is proclaiming One God Almighty, and One Only Begotten Christ Jesus, by Whom, he saith, all things were made;—that He is the Son of God, He the Only Begotten, He the Maker of all things, He the True Light, enlightening every man, He the Maker of the world;—that He came to His own, that He Himself was made flesh and dwelt among us: these men, plausibly wresting their interpretation, will have one person to be the Only Begotten by way of Emanation, whom also they call, as it seems, the Beginning; but the Saviour, they will have it, was by origin another; and that the Word, the Son of the Only Begotten, was different from the Christ, who was put forth² to reform the Pleroma. Yea, each one of the terms which have been mentioned, they have taken up, and abusing the names, have transferred them to their own purpose³. So that, according to them, in so many words John makes no mention⁴ of the Lord Jesus Christ. For though he hath spoken of a Father, and of Grace, and of the Only-Begotten, and of Truth, and of the Word, and of Life, and of Man, and of the Church; by their supposition he spake of the first Eight, among whom Jesus is not yet, not yet Christ the teacher of John.

But that the Apostle spake not of their Combinations, but of our Lord Jesus Christ, Whom also He recognizes as The Word of God; he hath himself made manifest. For in his recapitulation, concerning the Word Whom he had mentioned above in the beginning, he concludes, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” But by their supposition, the Word was not made flesh, (seeing that He never so much as passed without the Pleroma,) but the offspring of the Economy, born⁵ after the Word, the Saviour.

§ 3.

Learn therefore, O ye fools, that Jesus Who suffered for us, Who dwelt among us, This same is the Word of God. For had any other of the Æons become flesh for our proper salvation, it was natural for the Apostle to have spoken of another. But if the Word of the Father Who descended, is the same also Who ascended, the Only-Begotten Son of the Only God, by the Father’s good pleasure incarnate in men’s behalf; not of any other, nor of any company of Eight, did he introduce that discourse, but only of the Lord Jesus Christ. For in fact the Word, by their account, was not in any proper sense made Flesh; but the Saviour,⁶ they say, clothed Himself with an animal body, framed according to His dispensation with ineffable foresight, that He might become visible and palpable. But Flesh means the old formation, that which God made out of the dust of the earth, as we read concerning Adam; which flesh John hath told us that the Word of God truly became. So is there an end of their first and aboriginal Eight. For when we have shewn that one and the same Person is the Word, and the Only-Begotten, and Life, and Light, and the Saviour and Christ, and the Son of God, and He too incarnate for us, the framework of their Ogdoad is done away. And on its dissolution, their whole system falls to pieces;—the system of their own invention, which they falsely dreaming of, inveigh against the Scriptures.

§ 4.

Then, collecting phrases and terms that lie here and there, they transfer them, as we said before, from the natural to the unnatural; doing much the same as those who at their own pleasure express any given meaning, and then endeavour to make it out⁷ from the poems of Homer: whereupon the less informed sort imagine, that Homer made his verses on that subject, thus freshly wrought out; and many, by the connected run of the verses, are surprised into a thought, whether this as they find it be not indeed Homer’s composition: as he who in Homeric verses thus describes Hercules sent by Eurystheus for the dog in hell:—(for there is nothing to forbid our rehearsing these too, for example’s sake, the endeavour being in both cases alike and the same.)

He spake; and forth with many a deep groan went

Bold Hercules, for mighty deeds renown’d,

By Perseus’ offspring, proud Eurystheus, sent

To drag from Erebus stern Pluto’s hound:

As mountain lion fearless, on he moved,—

Swift through the town; and with him troops of friends,

Nymphs, maidens, sires in many a peril proved,—

With plaintive wail, as who to death descends:

But Hermes, with Minerva, watch’d his way,

For in his heart he mourn’d his brother’s evil day⁸.—

Which of the simple ones would not be carried away by these verses, and imagine that Homer had so composed them on this very subject? whereas he who is versed in Homer’s subject will recognize the verses, but the subject he will not recognize; aware that one portion of them is spoken of Ulysses, another of Hercules himself, another of Priam, another of Menelaus and Agamemnon. And by removing them and restoring each to its own place, he will quite make the subject disappear.

And so too, he that keeps unswerving in himself the rule of the Truth which he received by his Baptism, will recognize⁹ the names out of the Scriptures, and the sayings, and the parables, but this blasphemous argument he will not recognize. For though he acknowledge the gems, yet the Fox instead of the royal Image he will not receive.¹⁰ But, by assigning every statement to its proper place, and adapting it to the body¹¹ of the truth, he will expose their fiction and exhibit its unreality.

§ 5.

Since however this stage-play wants the regular words of Dismissal¹², that having finished their plot, one may subjoin the refutation; we have thought it well to point out first, wherein the parents themselves of this fable vary from each other, as being of various spirits of Error. For indeed one may hereby accurately discern, even before our proof, the certainty of the truth proclaimed by the Church, and their perverted¹³ and false statement.