Chapter 30

§ 1.

And this being so, they in their folly say they mount up above the Creator, and in that they pronounce themselves better than that God,¹ Who made and adorned Heaven and Earth and the seas and all things that are therein, and will have themselves to be spiritual in some low sense², while their so great impiety makes them carnal;—as also of Him Who made His Angels spirits,³ and is clad with light as a cloke, and holds as it were in hand the circle of the earth,⁴ before Whom its inhabitants are accounted as grasshoppers, and Who is the Creator and God of all spiritual Being;—by saying that He is merely animal, they unquestionably and really betray their own frenzy, and are as persons more truly thunderstruck than those Giants whom fables tell of, lifting up their minds against God, puffed up with vain presumption and fleeting glory: for whom all the Hellebore in the world is not sufficient to purge them, causing them to vomit out their so great folly.

§ 2.

For the better person must be shewn such by his works.⁵ Whence then do they shew themselves better than the Creator? (that we too may deviate towards impiety, our argument compelling us, by making a comparison between God and frantic men, and descending to their way of reasoning, in our often refutation of them by their own doctrines: but may God forgive us, for we say not this comparing Him to them, but to expose and overthrow their madness.) Many of the senseless look astonied at them, as though they could learn from them something more than the Truth itself.⁶ And where it is written, Seek and ye shall find, they interpret it as said to this purpose, that they may find themselves above the Creator, calling themselves greater and better than God, and themselves spiritual, but the Creator merely animal: and therefore they say they mount up above God, and that they pass into the Pleroma, but God is in the intermediate place. Let them then shew better than the Creator by works. For the better person must be proved such, not by what he is said to be, but by what he is.

§ 3.

What work, accordingly, will they point to, wrought by themselves through their Saviour or their Mother,⁷ either greater or brighter or more full of reason than those wrought by Him Who set all these things in order? What Heavens have they set fast? what earth have they made solid? what stars have they sent forth? or what lights have they kindled? and by what circles have they restrained them? Or what rains or frosts, either general in their season, or suited to the need of each particular country, have they brought upon the Earth? And what heat and drought have they set to counteract these? or what rivers have they caused to overflow? and what fountains to break out? or with what flowers and trees have they adorned the space under the Heaven? or what variety of animals have they framed, some rational and some irrational, all with their proper form? And all the other things which by the power of God were established, and are guided by His Wisdom, who shall be able separately to enumerate, or to search out the greatness of the wisdom of the God Who made them? And what shall I say of the beings which are above the Heavens, and which may not pass away? how great are they, Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominions, Powers without number! Against which one work, then, of all these, do they set themselves as rivals? What have they like them to shew, wrought through themselves, or by themselves? Since even themselves are His work and His framing. For whether it were their Saviour, or their Mother (to repeat their own statements, by their own words proving them liars) who employed him, as they say, to form an image of things within the Pleroma, and of all which met her eyes around the Saviour: she employed him, as better and fitter, to do her own will by him. For the images of so great originals she framed of course not by an inferior but by a better person.

§ 4.

For they too even themselves were at that time,⁸ by their own account, in existence, a spiritual conception, following on the contemplation of those who were set as guards about Pandora. And they indeed remained empty (the Mother by the Saviour accomplishing nought through them)—a useless conception, and fit for nothing: for nothing appears done by them. But he who was produced, as they say, being God, though inferior by their theory to themselves (for they will have him to be merely animal) was to all things a workman, energetic, and skilful, so that by him were made images of all. And not only these things which are seen, but the invisible too, Angels, Archangels, Dominions, Powers, and Virtues, all were made by Him of course as by a better, and as one who can be guided by Will. But it seems not that the Mother did anything by them, as themselves also confess. So that one might justly account them to have been an abortion of their Mother in her travail. For the midwives waited not upon her, and therefore as an abortion they were cast out, for nothing useful, made to help the Mother in no work. Withal they call themselves better than him, by whom such and so great things were made and ordered: while even by their own reasoning they are very very inferior.

§ 5.

As if there were two working tools or instruments,⁹ one of which the artizan has always in hand and in use, and doth by it what he will, and displays his art and skill, while the other abides empty and inactive, and without doing anything—the artificer appearing to do nothing at all thereby, and employing it for no action:—and then one should say that this useless and empty and inactive thing is better and more valuable than that which the artist useth in working, whereby also he is himself glorified: such a man thereupon will justly be thought dull, and not master of his own mind. Now these too in like manner, calling themselves spiritual and of the better sort, and the Creator merely animal; and therefore talking of getting up higher, and penetrating within the Pleroma to their own husbands (for they are women, as themselves confess) while they speak of God as inferior and as therefore abiding in the middle space; and bringing no proof of it (for he who is better is shewn by his works; now all the works are made by the Creator); but of themselves having no work of any account to shew:—these are mad, with an extreme and incurable madness.

§ 6.

But if they go on to say,¹⁰ that all material things indeed, e.g., the Heaven and the whole world which is contained beneath it were made by the Creator, but that as many as are more spiritual than these, those which are above the Heavens, as for instance, Principalities, Powers, Angels, Archangels, Dominations, Virtues, were made by a kind of spiritual travail, (which they identify with themselves): first of all, we shew from the Divine Scriptures, that all the aforesaid things, visible and invisible, are made by one God. For these men are not more competent than the Scriptures; nor ought we leaving the words of the Lord, and Moses, and of the other Prophets, proclaimers of the truth, to trust these men, who say nothing sound, but are restless and doting. Further again; if by them were made the things which are above the Heavens, let them tell us what is the nature of things invisible, let them declare the number of the Angels, and the order of the Archangels; let them shew us the sacraments of the Thrones, and teach us the distributions of Dominions, Principalities and Powers and Virtues. But they cannot tell us: therefore by them they were not made. If on the other hand these things were made by the Creator, as indeed they were made, and are spiritual and holy: He is not then merely animal, Who hath wrought spiritual things in perfection: and a great blasphemy of theirs is done away.

§ 7.

For that there are in the Heavens spiritual creatures, all the Scriptures cry aloud; and Paul too bears witness that they are spiritual,¹¹ signifying that he himself was caught up to the third Heaven; and again, that he was borne away into Paradise, and heard unspeakable things, which it was not lawful for a man to utter.¹² And what avails him either his entrance into Paradise, or his assumption even to the third Heaven (since all those regions are under the power of the Creator), if he were beginning, as some are bold to say, to become a contemplator and hearer of those mysteries which are said to be above the Creator? For if it were that he might learn that system which is above the Creator, he would not surely have tarried within the Creator’s portion¹³, and that without perfect sight of the whole even of that (for there still remained to him by their account a fourth Heaven, so that he might draw near to the Creator, and see the whole sevenfold series under him): but he would be received, we will say, at the least up to the middle region, that is, to their Mother, to learn from her the things within the Pleroma. For his Inner Man, which also spake in him, being invisible, as they say, might attain not only to the third Heaven, but even unto their Mother. For if they say that they themselves, i.e., the Man that belongs to them, straightway overpasses the Creator, and departs to the Mother; this of course would happen much more to the Man that belonged to the Apostle: for neither would the Creator have impeded him, being now himself, as they say, subject to the Saviour. And if he had impeded him, it would have been in vain. For he cannot be mightier than the Providence of the Father; and that, while the Inner Man, as they say, is invisible even to the Creator.¹⁴ But since he has related, as some great and remarkable thing, how he was assumed even to the third Heaven, these men do not surely ascend above the seventh Heaven: for they are not better than the Apostle. If they call themselves better, they will be refuted by their works: for no such pretension has been advanced by them.¹⁵ And he added, Whether in the body, or out of the body, God knoweth: that neither might the body be imagined to be partaker of that vision, as though it also would have a share in the things which he had seen and heard; nor again might it be said, that the weight of his body was the reason why he was not taken up further: but as though he were permitted so far even without the body to behold the spiritual mysteries¹⁶, which are works of the God Who made the Heavens and the Earth, and formed Man, and set him in Paradise, to the end that such as, like the Apostle, are very perfect in the love of God, might become sharers in the contemplation.

§ 8.

He therefore made also the spiritual things, whereof the Apostle became a contemplator,¹⁷ even to the third Heaven, and the unspeakable words, which it is not allowed a man to speak, because they are spiritual; and He, the very same Being, bestows them at His will on those worthy of them, for to Him belongs Paradise; and the Creator is truly the Spirit of God, and not merely animal, else never would He have accomplished things spiritual. But if he is merely animal, let them tell us by whom the spiritual things were made. Nor yet are they able to prove that anything was made by the travail of their Mother, as they say they were themselves. For they cannot accomplish the making, I say not of any one among spiritual things, but not so much as of a fly, or a gnat, or any of those contemptible little animals: apart from that method whereby animals naturally have been and are made, by deposition of seed in those of the same kind, which method came in the beginning from God. Nay, not even by their Mother alone was any thing made; as they say, this Creator and Lord of all kinds of operation was produced. And while they call him merely animal, Who is Creator and Lord of all working, themselves they say are spiritual, who are neither framers nor rulers of any work: not even of their own bodies, much less of those without them. Lastly, they suffer often and much against their will in the body, they who call themselves spiritual and better than their Creator.

§ 9.

Truly then shall we convict them of having far and wide swerved from the truth.¹⁸ For whether the Saviour made the things which were made by him: it proves him not inferior to them, but better, in that He is found to be Maker of these very men themselves among the rest; for they too are of the things which were made. How then is it congruous, that they should be spiritual, and the very person by whom they were made, merely animal? Or if (what alone is true, and we have shewn as by clearest demonstration in a great many ways,) He did of Himself and by His own power freely make, ordain, and accomplish all, and if by His will all subsist; He is found to be the only God, Who made all:—the only Almighty, and the only Father, founding and making all things, both visible and invisible, sensible and insensate,¹⁹ in Heaven and in earth, by the Word of His Power: Who constructed and ordained all by His own Wisdom: Who comprehends all, and alone can of none be comprehended: Himself the Framer, Himself the Founder, Himself the Inventor, the Maker, the Lord of all: and there is not beside Him, nor above Him, either such a Mother, as they feign; or another God, whom Marcion devised: or Pleroma of thirty Æons, which has been proved vain; nor Deep, nor First Beginning, nor Heavens; nor virginal Light, nor unnameable Æon; nor any at all of the things which they and all Heretics dote about. But the one only God is our Creator, He Who is above all Principality, and Power, and Dominion, and Virtue: He is Father, He God, He Founder, He Maker, He Framer, Who made them by Himself, i.e., by His Word and His Wisdom, Heaven, and Earth, and Seas, and all that in them is; He is just, He is good; He it is Who made man, Who planted Paradise, Who framed the world, Who brought on the flood, Who saved Noah;²⁰ He, the God of Abraham and the and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of the living; Whom also the Law announces, Whom the Prophets proclaim, Whom Christ reveals, Whom the Apostles teach, Whom the Church believes. He the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by His Word, Who is His Son:—by Him He is revealed and manifested to all, to whom He is revealed: for those know Him, to whom the Son shall reveal Him.²¹ And the Son, ever co-existing with the Father, from of old and from the beginning ever reveals the Father, even to the Angels and Archangels, and Powers, and Virtues, and all to whom God will reveal Him.