Refutation of All Heresies 5 part 2/4

These, he says, are the unspeakable mysteries spoken of by all, which we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the psychic man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And these, he says, are the unspeakable mysteries of the Spirit, which we alone know.

Concerning these, he says, the Savior said: 'No one can come to me unless my heavenly Father draw him.' For it is, he says, very difficult to accept and receive this great and ineffable mystery. And again, he says, the Savior said: 'Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.'

Meaning that one must, by doing and not merely hearing, enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again, he says, he said: 'Tax collectors and harlots go before you into the kingdom of heaven.' For, he says, tax collectors are those who collect the 'ends' of all things; and we, he says, are the tax collectors, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. For, he says, the 'ends' are the seeds sown into the world from the uncharacterized one, through which the whole world is completed; for through them it also began to come to be.

And this, he says, is what was said: 'A sower went out to sow; and some fell beside the road and was trodden down; and some upon the rocky places, and it sprang up,' he says, 'and because it had no depth, it withered and died; and some fell,' he says, 'upon the good and fine soil, and produced fruit — some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear,' he says, 'let him hear.' This means, he says, that no one has become a hearer of these mysteries except only the perfect Gnostics.

This, he says, is the good and fine land, of which Moses says: 'I will bring you into a good and fine land, into a land flowing with milk and honey.' This, he says, is the honey and the milk, of which the perfect, having tasted, become 'kingless' and partake of the Fullness [Pleroma]. This, he says, is the Pleroma, through which all things that come to be as begotten came to be and have been filled from the unbegotten.

And this same one is also called 'unfruitful' by the Phrygians. For he is unfruitful when he is fleshly and works the desire of the flesh. This, he says, is what was said: 'Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.' For these fruits, he says, are only the rational, living men, who enter through the third gate.

They say, at any rate: 'If you have eaten dead things and made them living, what will you do if you eat a living thing?' And they call 'living' both words and minds and men — the pearls of that uncharacterized one, cast as fruits into the formation.

This is what he says: 'Do not cast the holy thing to the dogs, nor the pearls before swine' — calling the intercourse of a woman with a man the work of swine and dogs.

This same one, he says, the Phrygians call 'aipolos' [goatherd], not because, he says, he pastured goats and he-goats, as the psychic ones interpret, but because, he says, he is 'aeipolos' [ever-turning], that is, the one who ever turns and revolves and drives the whole world around in revolution.

For 'to polein' is 'to turn' and to change things about; from this, he says, all men call the two poles of heaven 'poloi.' And the poet also says: 'There comes here an ancient sea-god, unerring, the immortal Egyptian Proteus.' He is not 'sold,' he says, but he means that he turns about there and goes around. And 'cities' [poleis], in which we dwell, are so called because we turn and revolve within them, and they are called poleis.

Thus, he says, the Phrygians call this one 'aipolos,' the one who always turns all things everywhere, and toward what is proper to them. And the Phrygians also call him, he says, 'polykarpos' [much-fruited], because, he says, the children of the desolate one are more numerous than of her who has a husband — that is, the things regenerated, immortal and ever-abiding, are many, even though the things generated in this manner may be few; but fleshly things, he says, are all corruptible, even though the things generated that way may be very many.

For this reason, he says, Rachel wept for her children and would not, he says, be comforted, weeping for them; for she knew, he says, that they were not. And Jeremiah also laments the lower Jerusalem — not the city in Phoenicia, but the lower, corruptible generation; for Jeremiah too, he says, speaks of the perfect man, the one regenerated from water and spirit, not fleshly.

Jeremiah himself, at any rate, said: 'He is a man, and who shall know him?' Thus, he says, the knowledge of the perfect man is very deep and hard to grasp. For, he says, the beginning of perfection is the knowledge of man, but the knowledge of God is perfection completed.

And the Phrygians, he says, call him also the green ear of grain that has been reaped; and after the Phrygians, the Athenians, initiating people into the Eleusinian mysteries and showing to those who behold [the epoptai] the great and wondrous and most perfect mystery of vision there, in silence, show them a reaped ear of grain.

And this ear of grain is also, among the Athenians, the great, perfect luminary that comes from the uncharacterized one — just as the hierophant himself, not indeed castrated as Attis is, but rendered a eunuch by means of hemlock and having wholly renounced all fleshly generation, celebrating by night in Eleusis, amid much fire, the great and ineffable mysteries, cries aloud and shouts, saying: 'The Mistress has borne a sacred boy, Brimo has borne Brimos' — that is, 'the Strong female has borne the Strong male.'

'The Mistress,' he says, is the spiritual generation, the heavenly, the one above; and 'the strong one' is the one thus begotten. For the so-called mystery is called 'Eleusis' and 'the sanctuary of Eleusis,' because, he says, we the spiritual have come from above, flowing down from Adamas — for 'to come' means 'to have come' — and 'Anaktoreion' is so called because of the 'above.'

This, he says, is what those initiated in the mysteries of the Eleusinians say; and it is an ordinance that those who have been initiated into the lesser mysteries should afterward be initiated into the greater. 'For greater destinies obtain greater portions.' 'The lesser mysteries,' he says...

...are the mysteries of Persephone below, concerning which mysteries, and the road leading there — being broad and spacious and carrying those who perish to Persephone — [text lacuna]... And the poet also says: 'But beneath it is a dreadful path, hollow, miry; and it is the best guide to the lovely grove of much-honored Aphrodite.' These, he says, are the lesser mysteries, those of fleshly generation.

...having been initiated into the lesser mysteries, men must cease there, before being initiated into the great, heavenly ones also. For those who obtain the destinies there, he says, receive greater portions. For this, he says, is the gate of heaven, and this is the house of God, where the Good One alone dwells, into which, he says, no unclean person shall enter — neither psychic nor fleshly — but it is kept only for the spiritual, where those who arrive must cast off their garments and all become bridegrooms, made male through the virginal spirit.

For this is the virgin who conceives and is with child and bears a son — not psychic, not bodily, but the blessed aeon of aeons. Concerning these things, he says, the Savior expressly said that narrow and constricted is the way that leads to life, and few are those who enter it; but broad and spacious is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who go through it.

Furthermore, the Phrygians say that the Father of all is an almond tree — not a tree, he says, but that pre-existent one is 'the almond,' who, having within himself the perfect fruit, as it were throbbing and stirring in the depth, scratched open his own bosom, and begot his own invisible, unnameable, and ineffable child, of whom we speak.

For 'amyxai' [to scratch/lance] is, as it were, to break open and cut through, just as, he says, in the case of inflamed bodies which have a certain gathering within them, which physicians, having cut them open, call 'amychai' [lancings]. Thus, he says, the Phrygians call the pre-existent one 'almond,' from whom the invisible one was begotten, through whom all things came to be, and without him not one thing came to be.

The Phrygians say that the one begotten from that source is 'syriktes' [the piper], because that which has been begotten is a harmonious spirit. 'For God is spirit,' he says; therefore, he says, the true worshipers worship neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit.

For the worship of the perfect is spiritual, he says, not fleshly. And the Spirit, he says, is there, where also the Father is named and the Son, being begotten there from this Father. This one, he says, is the many-named, myriad-eyed, incomprehensible one, whom every nature desires, each in its own way.

This, he says, is the word [rhema] of God, which, he says, is the word of the Declaration [Apophasis] of the Great Power; wherefore it will be sealed and hidden and covered, lying in the dwelling-place where the root of all things has been founded — of aeons, powers, notions, gods, angels, sent spirits, of beings and non-beings, of begotten and unbegotten, of incomprehensible and comprehensible things, of years, months, days, hours, of the indivisible point, from which the smallest thing begins to increase part by part. For this point, he says, being nothing and composed of nothing, being indivisible, will become, by its own thought, a certain incomprehensible magnitude.

This, he says, is the kingdom of heaven, the grain of mustard-seed, the indivisible point existing within the body, which no one knows, he says, except the spiritual alone. This, he says, is what was said: 'There are no words nor speeches, whose voices are not heard.'

Thus they improvise these things, interpreting according to their own understanding all that is said and done by all men, claiming that everything becomes spiritual. Hence they also say that even those who perform in the theaters do not say or do anything without providence. Accordingly, he says, whenever the populace gathers in the theaters, one enters, clothed in a strange robe, carrying a lyre and playing, and thus speaks, singing the great mysteries without knowing what he says:

'Whether of Cronus, or blessed son of Zeus, or of great Rhea, hail, O Attis, the oft-heard-of one of Rhea! You the Assyrians call thrice-longed-for Adonis, and all Egypt calls Osiris, the heavenly horn of the moon Greek wisdom calls you, the Samothracians revered Adamna, the Haemonians Corybas, and the Phrygians now Papas, now again Corpse, or God, or the unfruitful goatherd, or the green ear of grain that has been reaped, or the man-piper whom the much-fruited almond bore.'

He says this is the many-formed Attis, whom, hymning, they say thus: 'I will hymn Attis, son of Rhea, not with the booming of bells nor with the bellowing pipe of the Idaean Curetes, but I will blend it with the Phoebean muse of lyres: euoi, euan, as Pan, as Bacchus, as shepherd of the white stars.'

On account of these and such words, they attend upon the so-called mysteries of the Great Mother, especially supposing that they perceive most fully, through what is done there, the whole mystery. For they have nothing more than what is done there, except that they are not castrated — they only perform the work of the castrated.

For they very sternly and vigilantly command their followers to abstain, as though castrated, from intercourse with a woman. But the rest of their activity, as we have said at length, is just as the castrated ones do; and they honor nothing other than the naas — these being called Naassenes.

'Naas' is the serpent, from which he says that all things under heaven called 'naoi' [temples] are named, from 'naas'; and that to that naas alone is dedicated every shrine, every rite, and every mystery, and that in general no rite can be found under heaven in which there is no temple, and the naas within it, from which it has obtained the name 'naos.'

And these say that the serpent is the moist substance, just as Thales of Miletus also held, and that nothing at all of the things that exist — immortal or mortal, animate or inanimate — is able to consist without it.

All things, they say, are subject to it, and it is good, and has within itself, as if from the horn of a unicorn bull, the beauty of all other things, and it bestows their comeliness on all things that exist, according to their own nature and affinity — as though journeying through all things, as it were going forth from Eden and dividing into four heads.

And they say that Eden is the brain, as it were bound and constricted within its surrounding coverings as though within heavens; and they consider the paradise to be man as far as the head alone. This river, then, going out of Eden, that is, from the brain, is divided into four heads; and the name of the first river is called Pishon, this is the one that encircles the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; and there is bdellium and the green stone [beryl].

This, he says, is the eye, bearing witness by its value and its colors to what is said. And the name of the second river is Gihon; this is the one that encircles the whole land of Ethiopia. This, he says, is the [organ of] hearing, being a kind of labyrinthine thing. And the name of the third is Tigris; this is the one that flows opposite the Assyrians.

This, he says, is the [organ of] smell, employing the most rapid course of current; and it flows opposite the Assyrians, because, while the breath is exhaling, in the process of respiration the breath drawn in from without, from the air, enters more sharply and forcefully. For this, he says, is the nature of respiration.

And the fourth river is the Euphrates. This they call the mouth, through which is the exit of prayer and the entrance of food, which both nourishes and gives form to the spiritual, perfect man. This, he says, is the water above the firmament, concerning which, he says, the Savior said: 'If you knew who it is that asks, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water, welling up, to drink.'

To this water, he says, every nature comes, choosing out its own substance, and to each nature there comes, from this water, its own proper thing — more surely, he says, than iron comes to the Heraclean stone [magnet], and gold to the plume of the sea-hawk, and chaff to amber.

But if anyone, he says, is blind from birth and has not beheld the true light which enlightens every man coming into the world, let him regain his sight through us and see, as it were through a certain paradise full of every kind of plant and full of every kind of seed, water passing through all the plants and all the seeds; and he will see that from one and the same water the olive tree draws and selects its oil, and the vine its wine, and each kind of the other plants its own.

That man, he says, is dishonored in the world, and yet of great value [text lacuna] by those who do not know him, being reckoned of little worth, as it were a drop from a bucket. But we, he says, are the spiritual ones, who select what is proper to us from the living water flowing as the Euphrates through the midst of Babylon, journeying through the true gate, which is Jesus the blessed.

And we alone, of all mankind, are Christians, completing the mystery at the third gate, and being anointed there with an unspeakable anointing from a horn, as David was, he says, not from an earthen flask, as Saul was, who consorted with the evil demon of fleshly desire.

These, then, we have set forth as a few examples out of many; for the arguments of their folly are innumerable and are idle chatter. But since we have set forth in substance their unknown 'knowledge', it seemed good to add this also: a psalm has been extemporized by them, by which they suppose they hymn all the mysteries of their error, thus:

The universal law was the first-born mind; and the second was, of the first-born, the chaos that was poured out. The third, the soul, received a law that works within it; therefore, clothed about with the form of a hind, she labors, held fast by the meditation of death. Now she has royal power and beholds the light; now, cast out into misery, she weeps; now she weeps and rejoices; now she weeps and is judged; now, being judged, she dies; now she comes to be without an exit, the wretched one, having entered, wandering, the labyrinth of evils. And Jesus said: Behold, Father, this quest of evils wanders upon the earth, away from thy breath. And she seeks to flee the bitter chaos, and knows not how she shall pass through it. For this reason send me, Father: bearing seals I will descend, I will pass through all the aeons, I will open all the mysteries, and I will display the forms of the gods; and the hidden things of the holy way, having called them 'gnosis', I will deliver.

These, then, are the things the Naassenes attempt, calling themselves 'Gnostics.' But since error is many-headed and truly many-branched, like the storied Hydra, by striking one of its heads through refutation, using the rod of truth, we shall destroy the whole beast; for the remaining heresies do not differ much from this one, being held together by one spirit of error. But since, by interchanging the words and names of the serpent, they have wished there to be many heads of the serpent, we shall not fail to refute them in the manner they intend.

There is, then, also another heresy, the Peratic. Their blasphemy against Christ has for many years remained hidden; it has now seemed good to bring their secret mysteries into the open. These men assert that the world is one, divided into three parts.

Now, according to them, one part of this threefold division is, as it were, a single first principle, like a great spring able in principle to be divided into infinite divisions. The first and nearest division, according to them, is a triad, and is called 'the perfect good', 'the paternal greatness'. The second part of their triad is, as it were, an infinite multitude of powers generated from them. The third is 'the particular' world.

And the first is unbegotten, which is the good; the second is the good that is self-begotten; the third is begotten. Hence they explicitly speak of three gods, three logoi, three minds, three men. For to each part of the world, the division being distinct, they assign gods, logoi, minds, men, and the rest.

And they say that from above, from the state of unbegottenness and from the first division of the world -- the world now being established for its consummation -- there had descended, for reasons we shall state later, in the times of Herod, a certain triple-natured, tri-corporeal, and tri-powered man called Christ, having in himself, from the three parts of the world, all the composite substances and the powers.

And he says this is what is meant by the saying: 'All the pleroma was pleased to dwell in him bodily', and that in him is all the deity of the triad thus divided. For he says that from the two higher worlds above, the unbegotten and the self-begotten, there had been brought down into this world in which we are, seeds of all kinds of powers.

What the manner of their descent is, we shall state later. He says, then, that Christ descended from above, from the unbegotten realm, so that through his descent all the things divided into three might be saved. For, he says, the things brought down from above will ascend again below through him; but the things that plotted against those brought down from above are abandoned, and, having been punished, are utterly rejected. This, he says, is what is meant by the saying: 'For the Son of Man did not come into the world to destroy the world, but that the world might be saved through him.' By 'world', he says, Scripture means the two higher portions, the unbegotten and the self-begotten. But when Scripture says, he continues, 'that we might not be condemned with the world', it means the third portion, the particular world. For the third portion, which it calls 'world', must be destroyed, while the two higher portions are to be delivered from destruction.

Let us learn, then, first, how they, having taken this doctrine from the astrologers, do violence to Christ, working ruin for those who follow them in such error. For the astrologers, having said the world is one, divide it into the twelve fixed parts of the zodiacal signs, and call the world of the fixed zodiacal signs 'the fixed world'; and they say there is another world, that of the wandering bodies, differing in power, position, and number, which extends as far as the moon.

They say that one world receives from the other a certain power and participation, and that the things below partake from the things above. And in order that what is said may be made clear, I shall use in part those very expressions of the astrologers themselves, to remind readers of what was said before, in the place where we set forth the whole art of the astrologers.

What seems to them true, then, is as follows: that the generations of the things below are brought to completion from the effluence of the stars. For the Chaldaeans, having gazed up at the heaven with excessive curiosity, said that the seven stars hold the position of active causes for each of the things that happen to us, and that the zodiacal parts co-operate with them.

They divide the zodiacal circle into parts, and each sign into thirty degrees, and each degree into sixty minutes; for so they call the smallest and indivisible units.

Of the signs, some they call masculine, others feminine; and some are 'two-bodied', others not; and some are tropical, others fixed. Now the masculine or feminine ones are those which have a co-operating nature toward the begetting of males -- for Aries is a masculine sign, but Taurus is feminine.

And the remaining signs likewise, in the same proportion, some masculine, some feminine. From these, I suppose, the Pythagoreans too, being moved to their doctrine, call the monad masculine, the dyad feminine, and the triad again masculine; and likewise the rest of the even and odd numbers.

Some, moreover, dividing each sign into twelfth-parts, employ nearly the same method: for example, in the case of Aries, they call its first twelfth-part 'Aries' and masculine, the second 'Taurus' and partaking of masculine and feminine, the third 'Gemini' and likewise; and the same principle applies to the other degrees.

They say the 'two-bodied' signs are Gemini and its diametrically opposite sign, and Virgo and Pisces; the rest are not two-bodied. And likewise the tropical signs are those in which the sun, upon entering, changes and produces turnings of the surrounding atmosphere, such as the sign Aries and its diametrical opposite, as also Libra, Capricorn, and Cancer.

For in Aries occurs the spring turning, in Capricorn the winter turning, in Cancer the summer turning, and in Libra the autumn turning. We have set forth these matters and the argument concerning them in detail in the book prior to this one, whence the lover of learning may learn how the founders of the Peratic heresy, Euphrates the Peratic and Celbes of Carystus, having transposed these teachings, differed only in name, but set down the same things in substance, they themselves also attending excessively to this art.

For the astrologers also speak of the 'boundaries' of the stars, in which they claim the ruling stars have greater power. Thus in some boundaries they do evil, in others they do good; and they call some stars malefic, others beneficent. And they are said to 'behold' one another and be in accord with one another, as those appearing in trine or square aspect.

Now stars are configured in trine aspect when they behold one another with an interval of three signs between them, and in square aspect with two. And just as the parts subject to the head suffer along with the head, and the head suffers along with the parts subject to it, so also earthly things suffer with the supralunary things. But indeed there is a certain difference and lack of sympathy among these, such that they do not possess one and the same union.

This system and difference of the stars, being a Chaldaean doctrine, those we mentioned above having drawn it to themselves, and having falsely used the name of truth, proclaimed it as the doctrine of Christ -- 'the discord of aeons', 'the apostasies of good powers into evil', and 'the harmonies of good powers with evil ones', as they term them, calling certain powers 'local rulers' and 'suburban powers'; and fabricating for themselves many other names that correspond to nothing real, but unskillfully technicalizing the whole fantasy of the astrologers concerning the stars, introducing the foundation of a great error -- they will be refuted, together with our careful examination. For I shall set in contrast, against the aforementioned Chaldaean doctrine of the astrologers,

...set in contrast some of the Peratic treatises, from which it will be possible, by comparison, to perceive how the Peratic doctrines are, admittedly, those of the astrologers, and not of Christ.

It seems fitting, then, to set alongside our discussion one of the books held in honor among them, in which it says: 'I am the voice of the awakening in the aeon of night; henceforth I begin to strip bare the power that comes from Chaos. The power of the abysmal turbulence, that bears up the mud of the incorruptible, boundless, watery deep; the whole power of the outpouring, water-colored, ever-moving, bearing the things that remain, holding fast the things that tremble, releasing the things that come, lightening the things that remain, casting down the things that increase, the faithful steward of the track of the airs, the power that enjoys the things belched forth by command from the twelve eyes, declaring a seal to the power that administers together with them the invisible waters that are brought upon it -- this was called Sea.'

This power ignorance called 'Cronos', guarded by bonds, since it bound tight the tangled mass of the dense, misty, unseen, dark Tartarus. In the image of this power came into being Cepheus, Prometheus, Iapetus.

There is a power entrusted with the Sea, male-female, which, fitting the hissing sound that rushes up from the twelve mouths to the twelve pipes, disperses it, being fine, and puts down the violent upsurge that holds the Sea fast; and she seals the paths of her own tracks, so as not to war against them or interchange -- a typhonic daughter, faithful guardian of all waters. Her name is Chorzar. This power ignorance called 'Poseidon', in whose image came into being Glaucus, Melicertes, Ino, Nebroe.

There is a power that has enclosed the twelve-cornered pyramid in a sphere, darkening the gate into the pyramid with variegated colors and completing the whole night-hued region -- this power ignorance called 'Kore'; whose ministers are five: the first, Ou; the second, Aoai; the third, Ouo; the fourth, Ouoab; the fifth ... and other faithful stewards of its local rule of day and night, who rest in their own authority.

These ignorance called 'the wandering stars', upon which corruptible generation hangs suspended. The steward of the air of the East is Karphakasemeocheir, Ekkabbakara; these ignorance called 'the Curetes'. The third ruler of the winds is Ariel, in whose image came into being Aeolus, Briareus.

And the ruler of the twelve hours of the night is Soklan, whom ignorance called 'Osiris'; in whose image came into being Admetus, Medea, Hellen, Aithousa. The ruler of the twelve hours of the day is Euno; this one, the steward of the first-vaulted East and of the ethereal region, whom ignorance called 'Isis'.

Her sign is the Dog-star, in whose image came into being Ptolemy the husband of Arsinoe, Didyme, Cleopatra, Olympias. There is the right-hand power of god, whom ignorance called 'Rhea', in whose image came into being Attis, Mygdon, Oenone. The left-hand power has authority over nourishment, whom ignorance called 'Demeter'; her name is Bena; in whose image came into being Celeus, Triptolemus, Misyr, Apraxia.