for it is openly and plainly known by him who is willing to look upon it truly and faithfully. Since the throng of those who had gathered was of mixed sort, namely of females and males, he impelled them to come together among themselves. In which coupling some of the males sowed, and some of the females were made pregnant. And the offspring were like those who had begotten them, obtaining the many powers of their parents as the first to possess them. Their prince, taking these as a special gift, rejoiced. And just as even now we see the nature that forms bodies taking its powers from evil to give shape, so also the aforesaid prince, receiving the offspring of his companions, which had the senses, the prudence, the light of their parents, procreated together with them in the generation, devoured it;
and having taken very many powers from food of this kind, in which there was not only strength, but much more of cunning and depraved sense from the savage mind of the begetters, he summoned to himself his own consort, springing from that same stock from which he himself was; and having coupled with her, he sowed, as the others did, the abundance of the evils which he had devoured, himself also adding not a little from his own thought and power, so that he might be the shaper and describer of the sense of all those things which he had poured forth; and his consort received these things, as well-tilled earth is wont to receive seed. For in her were constructed and woven together the images of all the heavenly and earthly powers, so that what was being formed might obtain the likeness of a full world.
O wicked monster! O accursed perdition and ruin of deceived souls! I pass over saying what this is concerning the nature of God, that it should be so bound. Let the wretched, deceived and poisoned with deadly error, at least attend to this: that if by the coupling of males and females the part of God is bound, which they profess to loose and purge by eating, the necessity of this so abominable error compels them not only from bread and herbs and fruits, which alone they seem openly to take, but from there too to loose and purge the part of God, whence through intercourse it can, if it be conceived in a woman's womb, be bound together.
That certain people confessed they did this in a public trial is reported not only in Paphlagonia, but also in Gaul, as I heard from a certain catholic Christian at Rome; and when they were asked by whose scriptural authority they did these things, they brought this forward from their 'Treasure,' which I mentioned a little before. But these people, when this is objected to them, are wont to answer that some enemy of theirs — I know not who — from their own number, that is, from among their 'elect,' broke away and made a schism, and founded this most filthy heresy of this kind. Whence it is manifest that, even if these do not do it, they do it out of their own books, whoever does it. Let them therefore throw away the books, if they shudder at the crime which they are compelled to commit, if they keep the books;
or if they do not commit it, they strive to live more purely against their own books. But what do they do when it is said to them: either purge the light from whatever seeds you can, so that you may not refuse even that which you assert you do not do; or anathematize Manichaeus, who, when he says that in all seeds there is a part of God, and that it is bound by copulation, but that whatever of the light — that is, of that same part of God — reaches the food of the elect is purged by eating: you see what he persuades you to, and yet you hesitate to anathematize him. What, I say, do they do when this is said to them?
To what evasions do they turn, when either so abominable a doctrine must be anathematized, or so abominable a foulness must be committed — in comparison with which all those evils that I mentioned a little before as intolerable (that they say concerning the nature of God: that it was oppressed by necessity, so that it should wage war; that it was either secure in everlasting ignorance or troubled with everlasting grief and fear as to when the corruption of admixture and the bond of eternal condemnation would come upon it; that, when the war was at last waged, it was so taken captive, oppressed, polluted; that after a false victory it would be thus forever fixed in a horrible globe and separated from the felicity of its origin) — in comparison with which, I say, those things seem tolerable, though in themselves, if they be considered,
could not be endured? O how great is your patience, O Lord, merciful and compassionate, long-suffering and abounding in mercy and truth, who makest thy sun to rise upon the good and the evil, and sendest rain upon the just and the unjust; who willest not the death of the sinner, so much as that he should turn again and live; who, chastising in part, givest place for repentance, that having forsaken their malice they may believe in thee, O Lord; who by thy patience leadest to repentance, although many, according to the hardness of their heart and their impenitent heart, treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and of the revelation of thy just judgment; who renderest to every man according to his works; who, on whatever day a man is turned from his wickedness to thy mercy and truth, forgettest all his iniquities:
grant to us, give to us, that through our ministry — by which thou hast willed this execrable and exceedingly horrible error to be refuted — just as many have already been freed, so others also may be freed; and whether through the sacrament of thy holy baptism, or through the sacrifice of a troubled spirit and a heart contrite and humbled in the sorrow of repentance, they may be counted worthy to receive the remission of their sins and of their blasphemies, by which through ignorance they have offended thee.
For so great is the availing power of thy surpassing mercy and thy might, and the truth of thy baptism and the keys of the kingdom of heaven in thy holy Church, that not even concerning those must one despair, so long as they live on this earth through thy patience, who — even knowing how great an evil it is to think or say such things about thee — are yet held in that malignant profession on account of some habit or attainment of temporal and earthly convenience: that they, being at least rebuked by thy corrections, may flee to thine unspeakable goodness and prefer the heavenly and eternal life to all the allurements of the carnal life.