§ 1.
Neither is their ignorance less manifest in regard of that woman, who labouring with an issue of blood, touched the hem of the Lord’s garment, and was healed.1 (For they say that by her is indicated the suffering of that twelfth virtue, and its melting away into infinity: I mean, the twelfth Æon.) First, because, according to their sect, this Æon is not the twelfth, as we have shewn. But let this be granted them over and above: still, whereas, out of twelve Æons, eleven are said to have remained impassible, and the twelfth to have suffered, this woman on the contrary, being healed in her twelfth year, plainly had her suffering to endure for eleven years together, but in the twelfth year was healed. Now if eleven Æons were stated to have been in uncurable suffering, and the twelfth healed, then it were plausible to call this woman a type of them. But inasmuch as she after suffering eleven years without cure, was cured in the twelfth year; how can she be a type of the twelfth of the Æons whereof eleven suffered nothing, and the twelfth only partook of suffering? For the type and image in matter and substance does sometimes differ from the reality, but in habit and feature should keep its resemblance, and by things present, in the way of likeness, indicate those which are not present.
§ 2.
And not only in the case of this woman, were so many years of infirmity set down, as to suit by their account, the things they have devised;2 but behold also another woman in like manner enfeebled eighteen years, was healed; of whom the Lord saith,3 But this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan bound eighteen years, ought she not to be loosed on the Sabbath day? If then the former was a type of the twelfth Æon, which suffered; this also ought to be a type of the eighteenth Æon, which suffered. But they cannot prove; otherwise their first and principal set of Eight will be reckoned along with the Æons that shared the suffering. And besides, there is a certain other person healed by the Lord, thirty eight years in his affliction:4 let them also tell us of a thirty eighth Æon which suffered. For if they affirm the things done by the Lord to be types of those which are in the Pleroma, the Type ought to be kept throughout. But they cannot suit to their device either her who was cured after eighteen years, or him who was cured after thirty eight years. And it is altogether absurd and inconsistent to say that in some things the Saviour kept the type, and in other things kept it not. The type therefore of the woman is also proved unlike the affair of the Æons.