§ 1.
And first concerning their use of the number 30, thus we shall say, that it fails altogether in both respects, both in having too little and in having too much:1 with a view to which number they say the Lord came to Baptism at 30 years’ old. And by this our statement, it will be plain that all their reasoning is overthrown. And in regard of defect, thus it is: first of all, by counting the First Father with the other Æons. For the Father of all ought not to be put in the same list with the rest, which come of emanation: He Who is not sent out, with that which is sent out: and the Unborn, with that which is born; and He Whom none comprehends, with that which is comprehended by Him (and therefore He is Incomprehensible): nor He Who is without form, with that which hath form. I mean, that in that respect wherein He is better than the rest, He ought not to be counted with them: and especially not with any Æon capable of suffering, and set in error, He Who is impassible and unerring. Because they, beginning from The Deep, reckon up their Thirty even unto Wisdom, whom they term the wandering Æon; as we have explained in the former book, and have set down the names of the same by their statement. But now if we count not Him, there come to be no longer, as they say, thirty emanations of Æons, but twenty nine.
§ 2.
Afterwards again, in calling the first emanation Mind, which they also call Silence,2 from which again they say that Understanding and Truth emanated, in both they lose their way. For it is impossible that a person’s mind or silence should be conceived of as apart from himself or that it should emanate from the person and have a form of its own. But if they say it is not sent forth, but joined in one with the First Father; why do they reckon it with the other Æons, those which have no such union, and which therefore know not His greatness? And again, if it be thus united (this too we ought to consider) it is of absolute necessity,3 the original Pair being united, and inseparable, and quite one thing, that the emanation also which takes place from it, should be undivided and united, not to be unlike that from which it emanated. And this being so, as The Deep and Silence are One, so also will be Understanding and Truth continually cleaving together. And since the one cannot be conceived of without the other, as neither can water without moisture nor fire without heat, nor a stone without hardness (for these things are mutually conjoined); therefore the one cannot be separated from the other, but must ever coexist with it. Thus both The Deep must be united with Mind, and Understanding in the same way with Truth. Again also The Word and Life having emanated from united beings, must be united, and one. Now according to all this, The Man also and and The Church and all that emanates from the other Æons, thus wedded together, must be united, and the one portion coexist always with the other. For the female Æon must exist along with the male, by their statement, being a kind of affection thereof.
§ 3.
Yet for all these things, and for all these statements of theirs,4 they dare again shamelessly to teach, that the youngest Æon of the Twelve, whom also they call Wisdom, without access of her consort, whom they call The Desired, suffered I know not what, and apart from him bare fruit: which fruit they also term a Female, born of a Female. Wherein they have gone so far in madness, as to hold most evidently two contradictory opinions on the same thing. For if The Deep is united with Silence, and The Mind with Truth, and The Word with Life, and the rest in their order; how could Wisdom suffer or produce any thing unconnected with her consort? But if she suffered without him, the other pairs too must of course admit of mutual departure and separation: which is impossible, as we said before. Therefore it is also impossible for Wisdom to have suffered without The Desired; and their whole reasoning is again done away with. For of that which they say befel her without her consort’s embrace, they proceeded on to invent the whole plot (so to call it) of their Tragedy.
§ 4.
But if they were shamelessly to say that the other several pairs also are separated from each other, because of the last pair, to prevent their vain talk from being refuted; first of all they urge a thing impossible. For how will they separate the First Father from His Thought, or The Mind from Truth, or the Word from Life, and the rest in like manner? And how do they say that both themselves are tending to unity, and that all are one, if even these pairs which are within the Pleroma keep no unity, but are at a distance from each other; so as even to suffer and to propagate their kind untouched by any other, as hens without the male bird?
§ 5.
And after all, here is another way in which their first and original party of Eight will be broken up:5 There will be in their several modes of existence6 in the same Pleroma, The Deep and Silence, The Mind and Truth, The Word and Life, The Man and the Church. But it is impossible that when the Word is present, Silence should be: or again that when Silence is present the Word should appear. For these things are mutually destructible. As Light and Darkness will by no means be in the same subject, but if it be light, it is not darkness, and where darkness is, light cannot be, for at the coming of the light, the darkness is dissolved: so, where silence is, the Word will not be; and where the Word is, of course silence is not. But if they speak of the Word as resting in the mind7, the Silence will be so too, and will be just as much done away with by the inward Word. However, that it is not merely inward, this very statement of the manner of their emanation implies.
§ 6.
Now then let them not say that the first and chief Ogdoad consists of The Word and Silence, but let them do away with the one or the other of these: and so is their first and chief Ogdoad refuted. For if they say the pairs are blended, all their system falls to pieces. For how, they being blended, did Wisdom without a consort produce Defect? If on the contrary they say that as in emanation each of the Æons retains his own substance: how can Silence and The Word be manifested in the same? And thus much in the way of making out too little.
§ 7.
Again in respect of making out too much, their party of thirty is again refuted as follows.8 There emanated, they say, from the Only-Begotten, as the other Æons, so Horus, whom they call by a great many names; as we said before in the preceding Book. Now this Horus, some say, emanated from the Only-Begotten, but others say, from the First Father Himself in His own likeness. A further emanation moreover, they say, took place from the Only-Begotten, Christ and the Holy Ghost, and these they count not in the number of the Pleroma, as neither do they the Saviour, whom they call besides The Whole. For this even a blind man can see, that by their account were sent out not thirty emanations only, but four likewise with those thirty. For they reckon the First Father Himself in the Pleroma, and those who by succession emanated one from another. Why, I ask, are these not to be counted with them, being in the same Pleroma and gifted with the same emanation? For what just cause can they lay down, why they number not with the other Æons, either Christ, whom they state to have emanated, with the Father’s consent, from the Only-Begotten: nor the Holy Spirit, nor Horus, whom they call also Redeemer: yea, not even the Saviour himself, who they say came to assist their Mother, and put her in form? Whether, as though these were far inferior to the other, do they therefore deem them unworthy to be even named and numbered as Æons; or as being better and more excellent? Nay, how should they prove inferior to all, sent out as they are for the very purpose of settling and correcting the rest? But on the other hand, they cannot be better than the first and principal quaternion, from which also they emanated; for that too is counted in the aforesaid number. But these too ought to be numbered in the Pleroma of the Æons; or else the other Æons should have the honour of the said title taken from them.
§ 8.
Their Thirty being therefore once done away,9 as we have shewn, both in respect of defect and of excess (for in such a number if there be too much or too little, it will make the number fit to be rejected, how much more so many such faults!) the fable therefore about their Bands of Eight and of Twelve is ungrounded. Yea, and their whole rule is ungrounded, their very strong place being done away, and dissolved into The Deep, i.e., into that which is not. Let them therefore from this time forth seek other reasons to shew why the Lord at thirty years’ old came to Baptism: and also of the Twelve Apostles, and of her who suffered the issue of blood: and in whatsoever else they vainly toil and babble of.