Refutation of All Heresies 4 part 3/4

The bird, disturbed by the flame, rises on high and flies more swiftly; and the foolish ones, seeing this as though they had witnessed something divine, hide themselves. The winged creature, whirling about because of the fire, comes down wherever it happens to reach; and sometimes it sets fire to houses, sometimes even to courtyards. Such is the foreknowledge of the magicians.

They show the moon appearing on the ceiling, and stars, in this manner: having fixed a mirror in the middle of the ceiling, and set a basin full of water directly beneath it in the middle of the floor, and placed a lamp, showing dim, in the middle, higher up than the basin, thus by reflection through the mirror he makes the moon appear to show.

But also often, having set up a tambourine far off on a height, upright, wrapped round with a garment, concealed by the fellow-trickster so that it may not appear before its time, and having placed a lamp behind it, when he gives the signal to the fellow-trickster, he removes as much of the covering as would help produce the likeness of the moon's shape at that particular phase. He smears the parts of the tambourine that show through with cinnabar and gum.

And also, having cut off the neck and bottom of a certain flask (the text is uncertain here), having put a lamp inside and placed around it something suitable to make the shape shine through, one of the fellow-tricksters, standing on a height, hidden under some covering, after receiving the signal, lowers the device down from on high, so that the moon seems to descend from heaven.

A similar effect is also produced by means of a pot in wooded places. And by means of the pot, indoor tricks also are performed. For an altar being set up, behind it lies the pot with a lamp shining within; but when there are several lamps, nothing of this sort is shown. So when the enchanter invokes the moon, he orders all the lamps to be extinguished except one dim one to be left, and then the light from the pot reflects onto the ceiling and produces for those present the appearance of the moon — the mouth of the pot being covered to whatever extent the occasion seems to require — so that a crescent-shaped image is shown on the ceiling.

They make people think there are stars in this manner: scales of shad or of the hippouros [dolphinfish], soaked in water with gum and stuck onto the ceiling at intervals.

They produce the illusion of an earthquake, so that everything seems to move, by burning on coals the dung of an ichneumon together with the loadstone... [text breaks off]

They show what seems to be a liver inscribed with writing: with the left hand he writes what he wishes, having adapted it to the inquiry, and the letters are written with oak-gall and sharp vinegar. Then, having taken up the liver, resting it upon the left hand, he lets it stand for a while, and it draws off the imprint, so that it is thought to have been written [on the liver itself].

Setting a skull upon the ground, they make it speak in this manner: it is made of ox-caul, and having been formed with Tyrrhenian [wax] and worked gypsum, when the membrane is placed around it, it presents the appearance of a skull, which seems to all to speak while the device is in operation — in the way we also explained in the case of the children: having prepared the windpipe of a crane or some such long-necked creature, the fellow-trickster, having attached it secretly to the skull, utters whatever he wishes. And when he wishes it to disappear, having set a great quantity of coals around it in a circle, as though offering incense, it seems to appear so; and the wax, taking on their heat, melts, and thus the skull is thought to have vanished.

These are the works of magicians, and countless others like them, by which, through the metrical harmony of their verses and the illusion of feats performed to seem trustworthy, they persuade the foolish; and the heresiarchs, struck with astonishment at their art, imitated it — handing down some of what is supposed [to be true] in secrecy and darkness, and paraphrasing other parts as their own.

For this reason, wishing to remind the many [readers], we have become somewhat more meticulous, so as not to leave any place for those wishing to lead others astray; and we have not without reason been drawn into certain secret matters of the magicians, which were not altogether necessary for our proposed subject, but were thought useful for guarding against the roguish and unsubstantial art of the magicians.

Since, then, as one may conjecture, we have set forth the opinions of all, taking much care to make manifest that the things introduced by the heresiarchs as strange, [presented] with a view to piety, are in fact vain and spurious, and perhaps not even worthy of mention in themselves, it seems good to recall in a brief discourse, summarily, what has been said before.

All the philosophers and theologians throughout the world who have made inquiry have not agreed concerning God — what he is, or of what nature. For some say he is fire, others spirit, others water, still others earth. But each of the elements has some deficiency, and each is overcome by another.

This happened to the wise men of the world — which is evident to those who have understanding — that, seeing the magnitudes of creation, they were thrown into confusion concerning the substance of existing things, judging these to be too great to be able to have received their origin from another; and they did not even declare that the universe as a whole was itself God, but, [taking] one visible cause as sufficient for theology, each judged according to what he determined, and thus, looking upon the things that came to be by God, and which, in comparison with his surpassing majesty, exist as the very least of things, and being unable to extend their mind to the greatness of the true God, they theologized in this manner.

But those who thought they had come nearer to the truth — the Persians — said that God is luminous, a light contained within air. But the Babylonians said that God is dark, which itself also appears to be a consequence of the other;

for night is followed by day, and day is followed by night. But the Egyptians, considering themselves the most ancient of all, having calculated the power of God and the intervals of the degrees by a most divine inspiration, said that God is an indivisible monad, self-begetting, and that from it all things have been constructed;

for this, they say, being unbegotten, begets the succeeding numbers; as, for instance, the monad, added to itself, begets the dyad, and likewise, added further, begets the triad and the tetrad, up to the decad, which is the beginning and end of numbers, so that the monad becomes both first and tenth, because the decad also is of equal value and is reckoned as a monad;

and this, multiplied tenfold, becomes a hundred, and again becomes a monad; and the hundred, multiplied tenfold, will make a thousand, and this will be a monad; likewise, even if a thousand multiplied tenfold completes the myriad (ten thousand), it will likewise be a monad. And the numbers kindred to the monad, by indivisible reduction, are reckoned as 3, 5, 6, 9.

[The text here is corrupt in the Greek.] It is more akin to the monad in nature, according to the treatise on the six-fold spiral coil; the dyad, according to the even placement and division of numbers.

Kindred to it is the number 4 and 8. These [text corrupt], having taken their number from the monad, extended as far as the four elements — I mean spirit, fire, water, and earth; and having made the cosmos out of these, he constructed it androgynous, and assigned two elements to the upper hemisphere, spirit and fire; and this hemisphere is called that of the monad, upward-tending, and male;

for the monad, being of fine parts, flies to the finest and purest part of the aether; but the other two elements, being coarser, he assigned to the dyad — namely earth and water — and this hemisphere is called downward-tending, female, and maleficent; and again, the upper two elements themselves, compared with one another, have within themselves the male and the female, for the fruitfulness and growth of the whole.

And fire is male, but spirit is female; and again, water is male, but earth is female. And thus from the beginning fire lived together with spirit, and water with earth. For just as fire is a power of spirit, so also water is a power of earth.

And the elements themselves, when calculated and reduced by the subtraction of nines, come to rest appropriately, some into the male number, some into the female. And the nine is subtracted for this reason: because the three hundred sixty degrees of the whole are composed of nines, and for this reason the four quadrants of the cosmos are circumscribed by ninety complete degrees each.

Light is akin to the monad, darkness to the dyad; and to light, by nature, belongs life, and to the dyad, death; and to life belongs righteousness, and to death, injustice. Therefore everything begotten under the male numbers is good-making, but whatever is under the female numbers is evil-making — as, for example, they reckon thus:

The monad — to begin with it — becomes 361, which, once the nine is subtracted, ends in the monad. Reckon likewise: the dyad becomes 605; subtract the nines, and it ends in the dyad, and each is restored to its own [nature].

To the monad, then, being good-making... [lacuna in the text] they observe and say that names ending in the odd number are upward-tending and good-making; but those ending in the even number are held to be downward-tending, female, and evil-making. For they say that nature is composed of opposites — of both good and evil, as it were right and left, light and darkness, night and day, life and death.

And further, they say this too: that God, as it were, having calculated, comes to rest at the pentad, or at the ennead — which is odd — which, inscribed, they wear as an amulet in this manner; and a certain herb, likewise ending in this number, similarly worn, works through the like calculation of the number.

But also the physician heals the sick by a similar calculation; but if the calculation is contrary, he does not heal easily. Attending to these numbers, they reckon whatever is alike, according to this reasoning — some by vowels alone, others by the whole number [of the letters]. Such also is the wisdom of the Egyptians, through which, glorifying the divine, they suppose they know it.

It seems to us that we have set forth these things sufficiently as well. Indeed, I think we have left out no opinion of earthly and lowly wisdom, and I do not regard the trouble taken over these matters as useless for us, in view of those who glorify [such things as wisdom] — who, encountering the great diligence we have expended, will both marvel at our earnestness and not despise our industriousness, and will not declare Christians to be fools once they observe the very things which they themselves foolishly believe.

Moreover, this discourse will advance those who attend to the truth and love learning, making them more prudent — not only so that, having learned the foundations of the heresies, they may easily overturn [the arguments of] those who have dared to lead others astray, but also [so that they may overturn] the opinions called those of the wise; being not inexperienced in these, they will neither be troubled by them as ignorant persons, nor be led astray by anyone as though he were acting by some [supernatural] power, but will moreover keep watch over those who are being led astray.

Having then sufficiently set forth these opinions, let us now proceed to the treatment of the matter proposed, so that, having demonstrated what we have undertaken to show concerning the heresies, and having compelled [the heresiarchs] to render to each their own [borrowed doctrines], we shall expose the heresiarchs stripped bare, and, having accused the folly of those who have been persuaded [by them], we shall persuade them to run back to the calm harbor of truth.

And so that what is going to be said may appear clearer to readers, it seems good also to set forth what Aratus contrived concerning the arrangement of the heavenly stars, since certain persons, likening them to the things spoken of in the scriptures, allegorize them, trying to transfer the minds of their audience, leading them on by fine-sounding words to what they wish, displaying a strange wonder as though the things said by them were written among the stars;

and these persons, gazing upon the strange wonder, being lovers of petty marvels, are caught, like the bird called the 'owl,' whose example is good to relate on account of what follows. The creature is not very different from the eagle either in size or in form, and it is caught in this way:

the bird-hunter, when he sees a flock alighting somewhere, from a distance claps his hands and pretends to dance, and thus gradually draws near to the birds; and they, astounded at the strange spectacle, become heedless of everything else. Then others, who have been prepared beforehand for the hunt, come up from behind and easily seize the birds as they gaze at the dancer.

Therefore I urge that no one, astounded by similar marvels put forth by those who interpret the heaven, be caught like the owl; for dancing and nonsense is the trickery of such people, and not truth.

Aratus, then, speaks thus: 'They — though many, and scattered here and there — are drawn round the heaven every day continually' — that is, all the stars — 'but that one moves not even a little, but remains ever fixed exactly so, and holds the earth balanced in the middle on every side, while itself circles round the heaven.'

He says the stars in heaven are 'many' — that is, 'ever-turning' — because they revolve unceasingly from rising to setting and from setting to rising in spherical form. And he says they are coiled about the Bears themselves like the great stream of a river — the great wonder of the monstrous Dragon; and this, he says, is what in Job the devil said to [God]:

'having walked to and fro under heaven and gone about it' — that is, having turned and surveyed the things that happen. For they consider the Dragon, the serpent, to be stationed at the arctic pole, watching everything from the highest pole and overseeing all things, so that nothing that is done may escape him;

for while all the stars in heaven set, this pole alone never sets, but coming up above the horizon, surveys and watches everything, and, he says, nothing that is done can escape it. 'Where especially the settings and the risings mingle with one another' — there, he says, its head is placed.

For at the setting and rising of the two hemispheres lies the head of the Dragon, so that, he says, nothing may escape it at once, neither of the things in the west nor of the things in the east, but that the beast may know all things together. And directly at the head of the Dragon there is discerned, by means of the stars, the figure of a man, which Aratus calls 'the wearied image' and 'like one toiling'; and it is called 'the Kneeler' (Engonasin).

Aratus, then, says he does not know who this is — this toil, this wonder, revolving in heaven. But the heretics, wishing through the account of the stars to establish their own doctrines, dwelling on these matters with excessive curiosity, say that the Kneeler is Adam, according to the command, he says, of God, as Moses said, guarding the head of the Dragon, while the Dragon [guards] his heel. For thus Aratus says: 'having the track of his right foot upon the coiling Dragon.'

He says that arranged on either side of him — I mean the Kneeler — are the Lyre and the Crown, and that he himself bends the knee, and, having stretched out both hands, is as it were confessing concerning sins. And that the Lyre is a musical instrument, constructed while the Logos was yet altogether an infant;

and we hear that among the Greeks, Hermes is called Logos. And Aratus says concerning the construction of the Lyre: 'This indeed, while yet by the cradle, Hermes bored through, and bade it be called the Lyre.' It has seven strings, signifying through the seven strings the whole harmony and construction of the cosmos, fittingly arranged; for the cosmos came to be in six [days], and on the seventh it rested.

If, then, he says, Adam, confessing and guarding the head of the beast according to the command of God, shall imitate the Lyre — that is, shall follow the Logos of God, that is, being obedient to the law — he will receive the Crown that lies beside him. But if he is negligent, he will be dragged down together with the beast that lies beneath him, and will have his portion, he says, with the beast.

The Kneeler seems to lay his hands on both sides — this hand touching the Lyre, that one touching the Crown, and thereby confessing, as one can see from the very figure itself; but his crown is likewise plotted against and snatched away by another beast, a smaller dragon, which is the offspring of the one guarded by the foot of the Kneeler.

And the man stands with both hands firmly gripping, pulling the serpent backward away from the Crown, and does not allow the beast, though it strives by force, to touch the Crown. Aratus calls him 'Ophiuchus' (the Serpent-holder), because he restrains the onrush of the serpent as it tries to reach the crown.

The Logos, he says, is the one in human form who prevents the beast from reaching the crown, pitying the one who is being plotted against by the dragon together with that offspring of his.

The Bears themselves, they say, are two heptads — each composed of seven stars — images of two creations. For the first creation, he says, is that concerning Adam, in his toils, which is the one seen in the Kneeler; and the second creation is that concerning Christ, through whom we are regenerated, which is Ophiuchus, contending against the beast and preventing it from reaching the crown prepared for man.

The great Bear is Helike, he says, a symbol of the great creation, toward which the Greeks sail — that is, toward which they are educated, and, borne along by the waves of life, they follow it — this creation, or teaching, or wisdom, being a kind of 'turning' (helike), leading backward those who follow such a creation; for the very name 'Helike' seems to denote a certain turning and a revolving back upon the same things.

The other Bear is small, as it were an image of the second creation, the one created according to God; for few, he says, are those who travel by the narrow way; and they call the Cynosura narrow, toward which Aratus says the Sidonians sail. And Aratus called the Phoenicians 'Sidonians' by synecdoche, because the wisdom of the Phoenicians is admired; and they say that the Phoenicians are Greeks who migrated from the Red Sea to this region — a view which Herodotus also holds.

Cynosura, he says, is this Bear — the second creation, the small one, the narrow way — and not Helike. For it does not lead backward, but guides those who follow it straight ahead, being of a dog. For the Logos is a dog: in this respect guarding and watching over the flock that is plotted against by wolves, in this respect hunting down and destroying the beasts, away from creation, and in this respect begetting all things — and, as they say, 'dog' [kyon] signifies 'begetting.'

Hence, they say, Aratus, speaking of the rising of the Dog, says thus: 'And when the Dog has risen, the plantings no longer deceive.' This is what he means: the plants set in the earth, up to the rising of the Dog, though often not having taken root, nevertheless flourish in leaves, and show to those who see them that they will bear fruit, and appear to be alive, though not having life from the root within themselves;

but when the rising of the Dog occurs, by the Dog the living are distinguished from the dead; for indeed whatever has not taken root truly withers away. This Dog, then, he says, being a certain divine Logos, stands established as judge of the living and the dead; and just as the Dog is observed with regard to the plants of creation, so also, he says, with regard to the heavenly plants — that is, men — is the Logos.

For this reason, then, the second creation, Cynosura, stands in heaven as an image of the rational creation; and the Dragon, lying midway, is stretched between the two creations, preventing the things of the great creation from passing over into the small creation, and watching over the things established within [its own] creation — just as the Kneeler does — observing how, and in what manner, each thing stands established within the small creation.

And he himself is also watched over at the head, he says, by Ophiuchus. This, he says, is an image standing in heaven, a kind of wisdom to those able to perceive it. But if this is unclear in this respect, then, he says, through another image creation teaches philosophy, concerning which Aratus has spoken thus: "Nor indeed the toilsome race of Cepheus, son of Iasus..."

Cepheus, he says, is near to him, and Cassiopeia, and Andromeda, and Perseus — great letters of creation to those able to perceive them. For he says that Cepheus is Adam, Cassiopeia is Eve, Andromeda is the soul of both of these, Perseus is the Word (Logos), the winged offspring of Zeus, and the Sea-Monster is the treacherous beast.

Not against any other of these, but against Andromeda alone, comes the slayer of the beast; and this Andromeda, given over and bound to the beast, the Word, he says — that is, Perseus — takes to himself and rescues. And Perseus is the winged girdler, who unites both poles through the middle of the earth and turns the cosmos.

And the spirit that is in the cosmos is also the bird, the Swan, near the Bears — a musical creature, a symbol of the divine spirit — because, when it has already come to the very limits of life, it alone by nature is able to sing, being released, with good hope, from the evil creation, sending up hymns to God.

And crabs and bulls and lions and rams and goats and kids, and however many other beasts are named throughout heaven by the stars — these, he says, are indeed images and models, from which the changeable creation, taking on the forms of such living creatures, becomes full.

By using these arguments they think to deceive many — as many as pay over-curious attention to astrologers — endeavoring thereby to establish a reverence for God that is in fact far removed and quite out of keeping with their [true] supposition. Wherefore, beloved, let us flee the petty marvel-mongering about the owl-bird; for these things, and the like of them, are but a performance, and not truth.

For the stars do not signify these things at all; rather, men themselves, of their own accord, gave such names for the marking-out of certain stars, so that these might be distinctive to them. For what similarity do stars scattered throughout heaven have to a bear, or a lion, or kids, or a water-pourer, or Cepheus, or Andromeda, or the figures named after those in Hades — seeing that these men and their names came into being much later than the generation of the stars was already established — so that the heretics too, struck with astonishment at the marvel, might in this way work up, through such arguments, the establishing of their own doctrines.

But since almost every heresy has, through the art of arithmetic, devised measures of hebdomads and certain projections/emanations of aeons — different [sects] tearing apart the art in different ways and differing only in names (for their teacher in these matters is Pythagoras, who was first to hand down such numbers to the Greeks from Egypt) — it seems [right] not to pass over this either, but, having shown it briefly, to proceed to the demonstration of the matters under inquiry.

There have arisen arithmeticians, to whom it seems that Pythagoras was first and foremost to have supplied their first principles. And these men, since numbers are always able to proceed on into infinity by multiplication and by figures, took as first principles [things] contemplable, as it were, by reason alone. For of geometry, as one may observe, the point is an indivisible first principle, and from that point the art discovers the generation of infinite figures proceeding from the point.

The point, having flowed out into length, becomes, after this flowing, a line, having a point as its limit; and a line, having flowed out into breadth, generates a plane, and the limits of the plane are lines; and a plane, having flowed into depth, becomes a body/solid. And a solid having come to exist, thus from the smallest point altogether the nature of the great body has arisen. And this is what Simon says thus: "The small will become great" — the point, as it were, being the lesser thing, and the great being unbounded — following after the point as conceived geometrically.

But since arithmetic contains philosophy (wisdom) according to composition, number has become [its] first principle — which is indeterminate, incomprehensible, having within itself, according to multitude, all the numbers that are able to proceed on into infinity. And the first principle of numbers has come to be, according to hypostasis, the first monad, which is a male monad, begetting in a fatherly manner all the other numbers.

Second is the dyad, a female number, which is also called even by the arithmeticians. Third is the triad, a male number; this too has been ordained by the arithmeticians to be called odd. And after all these comes the tetrad, a female number, and this same one is also called even, because it is female.

There have come to be, then, all the numbers taken from that class — four in number (and the class was "number," being indeterminate) — from which their perfect number is constituted, the decad; for one, two, three, four make ten, as has been shown above, provided that to each of the numbers its own proper name is preserved according to its essence.

This is, according to Pythagoras, the sacred Tetraktys, having within itself the roots of ever-flowing nature — that is, all the other numbers. For eleven and twelve and the rest take the beginning of their generation from the ten. Of this decad, the perfect number, four parts are named: number, monad, power, and cube.

For these there occur interweavings and combinations toward the generation of increase, accomplishing according to nature the fecund number. For when a power is itself cubed upon itself, there arises power-of-power; and when power is [multiplied] upon cube, there arises power-cube; and when cube is [multiplied] upon cube, there arises cube-cube — so that all the numbers become seven, that the generation of the things that come into being might arise from a hebdomad, which is: number, monad, power, cube, power-of-power, power-cube...

...cube-cube [is the seventh]. This hebdomad Simon and Valentinus, having exchanged the names, told marvelous tales about, having improvised from it a hypothesis for themselves. For Simon calls [them] thus: Mind, Thought, Name, Voice, Reckoning, Reflection, the One who stood, stands, and shall stand; and Valentinus: Mind, Truth, Word, Life, Man, Church, with the Father numbered along with them — following, in the same manner as those who practiced the philosophy of arithmetic, [a scheme] unknown [to others], and thus they constructed their own heresies.

Some, then, also attempt to establish the hebdomads from medicine, being astonished at the anatomy of the brain, saying that the essence and power and paternal divinity of the universe are taught from the structure of the brain.

For the brain, being the chief part of the whole body, lies still and motionless, having within itself the spirit. Now such an account is not implausible, but it is far removed from their [the heretics'] undertaking. For the brain, when dissected, has within it what is called the little chamber, on either side of which are thin membranes, which they call little wings, gently moved by the spirit and in turn driving the spirit back toward the cerebellum.

Which [spirit], running through a certain vessel resembling a reed, proceeds to the little cone, to which is attached the mouth of the cerebellum, receiving the spirit that runs through and passing it on to what is called the spinal marrow, from which the whole body receives its share of the pneumatic [element], all the arteries being suspended from this vessel like branches, the end of which terminates at the generative vessels; whence also the seed proceeding from the brain through the loins is secreted.

And the shape of the cerebellum resembles the head of a serpent, concerning which there is much discourse among those of the falsely-named "knowledge," as we shall show. And other pairs, six conjugate pairs, grow forth from the brain, which, extending around the head, hold the bodies together, terminating within it; and the seventh [pair extends] from the cerebellum down into the rest of the body, as we have said.