Chapter 31

§ 1.

The Valentinians then being overthrown, the whole multitude of the Heretics is cast down. For whatever we have said, and in whatever degree, against their Pleroma,¹ and concerning the parts which are without it, shewing that the Father of all will be shut up and circumscribed by the space which is without Him, (if indeed there be aught without Him); and that there must needs be in every direction many Fathers, and many Pleromata, and many creations of worlds, begun by one sort, and revolting to others; and that all of them, continuing in their own precincts, refrain from busying themselves about others, in which they have neither share nor interest; and that there is no other Who is God of all, the title of Almighty being broken up:—all this being spoken against Marcion’s set also, and Simon, and Menander, and whosoever else in like manner separate the creation which we are concerned with from the Father, will equally apply to them. And whatsoever again we have spoken against those, who affirm that the Universal Father comprehends indeed all things, but that the Creation of which we are part is not His work, but that of some other Power or of Angels who knew not the First Father, shut up like a centre in the boundless space of the universe, like a spot in a robe:—shewing that it is not probable that any other made this our Creation, than the Father of all:—this same shall be stated against those also who hold with Saturninus, and Basilides, and Carpocrates, and against the other Gnostics, who in like manner affirm the same. Again, what has been said of Emanations, and Æons, and Decay, and of their Mother being so unreal, in like manner overthrows Basilides, and all who are falsely called Gnostics², who maintain just the same things in other words, and who even go beyond our men in transferring notions from without the truth, into the framework of their system. And whatever we may have said about Numbers, will hold against all who refer the details of the Truth to that sort of measure. And all that hath been said of the Creator, to prove that He alone is God and Father of all, and all that is yet to be said in the following books, I say against all the Heretics.³ Such of them as are milder and more humane, thou wilt warn off and put to shame, that they blaspheme not their Creator, and Maker, and Nourisher, and Lord, nor make out His origin to have been of Decay and Ignorance. But the fierce, and abominable, and frantic, thou wilt chase far off from thee, lest thou bear with too much of their long harangues.

§ 2.

After this will be refuted the party of Simon and Carpocrates,⁴ and whoso beside are said to work miracles: as doing what they do by no divine virtue, nor in truth, nor as workers of good unto men: but for ruin and error, by magical deceits, and by all kinds of delusion, hurting rather than helping such as believe them, by leading them astray. For neither can they give sight to the blind, nor to the deaf hearing, nor drive away any devils, except those whom themselves set on (if indeed they do such a thing), nor heal the maimed, the lame, or the palsied, or those who are tormented in some other part of the Body, (as it often cometh to pass in bodily infirmity); or restore good health after those sicknesses which befall us from outward accidents. And so far are they from raising the dead, as the Lord raised some, and the Apostles by prayer, and in our Brotherhood often because of its near relationship, upon the petition of the whole Church in any place with much fasting and supplication, the spirit of the dead hath returned, and the man hath been granted unto the prayers of the Saints:—that they do not so much as believe this at all possible: but think that “Resurrection from the dead” means acknowledgement of the truth which they speak.

§ 3.

Since therefore among them is impiously wrought in sight of men error, and deceit, and magical fancy;⁵ but in the Church mercy and compassion, and soundness and truth, for men’s help; and since this is done not only without fee or reward, but with payment of our own on our part for the health of the men, and what things they need who are cured, they in their poverty very often receive of us: surely under this head also are they convicted of being altogether alien to the Divine Being, and the mercy of God, and spiritual Virtue; but filled throughout with all kinds of fraud, and with the inspiration of Apostates and with the working of dæmons, and with a vain shadow of idolatry. And they are forerunners of that Dragon who by this sort of imagination will cause by his tail the third part of the stars to leave their places,⁶ and will cast them down to the earth: whom we ought to avoid as we would him, and by how much the greater shew they are said to work with, so much the more should we guard against them, as having received a greater spirit of wickedness. And if one will give heed to this Prophecy, he will find in it the daily course of their behaviour:—that their conversation is one and the same with the Dæmons’.