Excerpta ex Theodoto

From the works of Theodotus and the so-called Eastern School, summaries from the time of Valentinus. “Father,” he says, “I entrust my spirit into your hands.” That which Sophia brought forth, he says, a little flesh for the Logos, the spiritual seed, having put this on, the Savior descended. Therefore in the passion he entrusts Sophia to the Father, so that he might receive her back from the Father and she not be detained here by those who are able to deprive; thus every spiritual seed, the elect, entrusts itself through the aforementioned utterance. We call the elect seed also a spark kindled by the Logos, and the pupil of the eye, and a grain of mustard, and leaven, which unifies the kinds that seemed to be divided into faith. And those from Valentinus say that after the psychic body was formed, a masculine seed was placed by the Logos into the elect soul which was in sleep. This seed is an emanation of the angelic, so that there be no deficiency. And this leavened and unified the things that seemed to be divided, the soul and the flesh. These were also brought forth in division by Sophia; sleep was the forgetfulness of the soul, which held together the spiritual seed so that it would not be dissolved, which seed the Savior placed in the soul. The seed was an emanation of the male and angelic. Therefore the Savior says: “Save yourself.

and your soul.” So the Savior came and breathed out the soul, and kindled the spark; for the words of the Lord are power. Therefore he said: “Let your light shine before men.” And after the resurrection, breathing the spirit into the apostles, he blew away the dust, like ashes, and separated it, and kindled the spark and rekindled it. The Lord, out of great humility, did not appear as an angel, but as a man; and when he appeared in glory to the apostles on the mountain, he did not do so for his own sake, showing himself, but for the church, which is “the elect race,” so that it might learn its advancement after the departure from the flesh. For he himself was light above and is the light that appeared in flesh, and what appeared here is not later than what is above. Nor was he interrupted; he moved from above to here, not changing place from place, as if taking one and leaving another; but he was wholly present both with the Father and here; for he was the power of the Father. Besides, that saying of the Savior had to be fulfilled, which he spoke: “There are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man in glory.” So Peter, James, and John saw and fell asleep.

How then, having seen the luminous vision, were they not astounded, but upon hearing the voice they fell to the ground? Because ears are more untrustworthy than eyes, and a voice contrary to expectation astounds more. John the Baptist, hearing the voice, was not afraid, as one hearing such a voice in spirit was accustomed to it; but insofar as he is merely a man, hearing it he was astonished. Therefore the Savior says to them: “Tell no one what you have seen.” Yet they had not seen the light with fleshly eyes (for nothing is akin and proper to that light and this flesh), but as the power and will of the Savior empowered the flesh to behold it; besides, what the soul saw it communicated to the flesh which shares in it because of its interweaving with it. And “tell no one,” so that, understanding who the Lord is, they might refrain from laying hands on the Lord and the economy might not be left incomplete, and death might abstain from the Lord, as one tempting in vain for an impossible thing. And further, the voice on the mountain was for the elect who already understood, wherefore they marveled at the testimony of the one in whom they believed; but the one at the river was for those who were about to believe. Wherefore the voice was disregarded by them, as they were preoccupied with the instruction of the teachers of the law.

The phrase "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" the followers of Valentinus interpret in this way. They call the Beginning the Only-Begotten, whom they also address as God, as in what follows he clearly indicates that he is God, saying: "The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, that one explained." And by the Word in the Beginning, that is, in the Only-Begotten, in the Intellect and the Truth, he indicates Christ, the Word and the Life; whence he fittingly calls him God who is in God the Intellect. "What came to be in him," the Word, "was life," the consort; therefore the Lord says: "I am the Life." The Father, then, being unknown, wished to be known by the Aeons, and through his own thought, as if having known himself, he projected the Only-Begotten as a spirit of knowledge existing in knowledge. Therefore that which came from knowledge, that is, from the Father's thought, having proceeded, became knowledge, that is, the Son, because "through the Son the Father was known." And the spirit of love is mingled with that of knowledge, as Father with Son and thought with truth. From truth, as from thought, knowledge proceeded. And the one who remained, "the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father," explains the thought through knowledge to the Aeons, as if projected from his bosom, while the one seen here is no longer called "only-begotten" but "as only-begotten" by the apostle, "glory as of an only-begotten," because, being one and the same, in creation he is "firstborn" Jesus, but in the Pleroma only-begotten; and the same is such in each place as he can be contained. And the one who descended is never separated from the one who remained.

The apostle says: "For the one who ascended is the same as the one who descended." They call the Demiurge an image of the Only-Begotten. Therefore the works of the image are dissoluble, whence also the Lord, having made the dead whom he raised an image of the spiritual resurrection, did not raise them with imperishable flesh, but as those who would die again. We, however, say that the Word in identity is God in God, who is also said to be "in the bosom of the Father," undivided, unseparated, one God. "All things came to be through him." According to the immediate activity of the Word in identity, both the spiritual and the intelligible and the sensible. "This one expounded the bosom of the Father." The Savior and [Isaiah: "And I will repay their works into their bosom," into their thought which is in the soul, from which it first is activated] "firstborn of all creation." The Only-Begotten in identity, by whose undivided power the Savior acts, this one is "the light" of the church which was formerly in darkness and ignorance. "And the darkness did not overtake him," the apostates, and the rest of men did not know him, and death did not hold him.

Faith is not one, but different. For the Savior says: "Let it be according to your faith." Hence it is said that the men of the calling will be led astray at the coming of the Antichrist; but the elect cannot be led astray. Therefore he says: "And if possible, my elect." Again, when he says, "Go out from the house of my father," he speaks to the called. Again, to the one who has come from abroad and consumed the possessions, for whom he sacrificed the fatted calf, he speaks of the calling. And where the king has called those on the roads to the wedding feast. All are called equally (for "it rains on the just and the unjust, and the sun shines on all"), but those who have believed more are chosen, to whom he says: "No one has seen my father except the Son," and "You are the light of the world," and "Holy Father, sanctify them in your name." But not even the spiritual and intellectual beings, nor the archangels, nor the first-created, nor indeed the formless, shapeless, unconfigured, and incorporeal one himself is without form, but he has his own form and a body proportionate to the superiority of all spiritual beings, just as the first-created also have a form and body proportionate to the superiority of the beings under them. For the created is not entirely without substance, but they have a form and body not similar to the bodies in this world. For here there are male and female, and they are different from them.

There the only-begotten, who is properly intellectual, having his own form and his own substance, is supremely pure and most authoritative, and directly enjoys the power of the Father. The first-created, although they are different in number and each is limited and circumscribed, yet the similarity of their things indicates unity, equality, and likeness. For not to one is more given and to another less among the seven. Nor is any progress left to them, since they have received perfection from the beginning together with their first generation from God through the Son. And one is called "inaccessible light," as "only-begotten" and "firstborn." "Which the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man." Nor will there be any such, neither among the first-created nor among men. But those who "always see the face of the Father"—the face of the Father is the Son, through whom the Father is known. Therefore that which sees and is seen cannot be formless nor incorporeal. They see not with a sensory eye, but with one such as the Father has provided, an intellectual one.

When, then, the Lord says, "Do not despise one of these little ones; truly I tell you, the angels of these continually behold the face of the Father," this is like a pre-embroidery, indicating what the elect will be like when they have attained perfect advancement: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." But how could there be a face of that which is formless? Yet the apostle knows celestial bodies that are beautiful and intellectual. And how could their different names be spoken, unless they were circumscribed by shapes, by form and body? "There is one glory of celestial beings, another of earthly beings, another of angels, another of archangels." In comparison with bodies here (such as stars), they are incorporeal and formless, but in comparison with the Son, they are measured bodies and perceptible; so also the Son when compared with the Father. And each of the spiritual beings has its own power and its own administration. But insofar as the first-created came into being together and have received perfection, they share a common and undivided service.

The first-created, then, see both the Son and themselves and those below, just as the archangels see the first-created. And the Son is the beginning of the vision of the Father, being called the face of the Father. And the angels are intellectual fire and intellectual spirits, their substance purified, while intellectual light is the highest advancement from the intellectual fire completely purified, "into which angels desire to peer." Peter says; and the Son is even purer than this, "inaccessible light" and "power of God," and according to the apostle, "we were redeemed by precious and unblemished and spotless blood." His "garments shone like light, but his face like the sun," at which it is not easy even to look directly. This is "heavenly bread" and "spiritual food" providing life through eating and knowledge, "the light of men." That is, of the church. Now those who ate the heavenly bread died, but he who eats the true bread of the spirit will not die. The living bread given by the Father is the Son for those who wish to eat; "and the bread which I will give," he says, "is my flesh," that is, either that by which the flesh is nourished through the eucharist, or, which is more likely, the flesh is his body, "which is the church." "Heavenly bread," a blessed assembly; perhaps because the elect are made from the same substance according to their underlying nature, and because they will attain the same end.

The demons are called "incorporeal," not because they lack a body (for they have both a body and a form; hence they also have a perception of punishment), but because, in comparison with the spiritual bodies of the saved, they are a shadow, they are called incorporeal. And the angels are bodies; at any rate, they are seen. But also the soul is a body. At any rate, the apostle says: "For a psychic body is sown, but a spiritual body is raised." How, then, do the punished souls perceive, if they are not bodies? At any rate, he says, "Fear the one who, after death, is able to cast both soul and body into Gehenna." For what is visible is not purified by fire, but is dissolved into earth. And directly from the example of Lazarus and the rich man, through the bodily members, the soul is shown to be a body. "Just as we have worn the image of the earthy, let us also wear the image of the heavenly," the spiritual, being perfected according to progress. Yet again he says "image," as there are spiritual bodies. And again: "Now we see through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face." For immediately we begin to know * * . And this is face, and form, and shape, and body. Now shape is contemplated by shape, and face by face, and the distinguishing marks are recognized by the shapes and the substances.

And the dove also appeared as a body, which some say is the Holy Spirit, others from Basilides say is the deacon, and others from Valentinus say is the spirit of the Father's thought, which descended upon the flesh of the Word. Jesus and the Church and Sophia are a mixture of all bodies possible according to the Valentinians. At any rate, human mixture in marriage, from two mixed seeds, produces the generation of one child, and the body dissolved into earth is mixed with the earth, and water with wine. The better and more distinct bodies have an easy mixture; at any rate, spirit mixes with spirit. But it seems to me that this happens by juxtaposition, not by mixture. Perhaps, then, the divine power, pervading the soul, sanctifies it according to the final advancement. "For God is spirit, and he blows where he wills." For the power does not pervade according to substance, but according to power and strength, and the spirit lies alongside the spirit, as the spirit lies alongside the soul. The Savior appeared descending to the angels, for which reason they also announced him, but also to Abraham and the other righteous ones who are in repose in the right-hand region he appeared; for it says, "He rejoiced that he might see my day," the presence in the flesh. Hence the risen Lord announced the good news to the righteous ones in repose and transferred and translated them, and all "will live in his shadow." For the shadow of the glory of the Savior, which is with the Father, is the presence here; and the shadow of light is not darkness, but illumination.

»And the Word became flesh,« not only by becoming man at the time of the advent, but also in the beginning the Word, which is in identity, became Son by circumscription and not by essence. And again he became flesh, having worked through the prophets. The Saviour is called a child of the Word in identity. Therefore, »In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; what came to be in him is life«; and life is the Lord. And Paul says, »Put on the new man, who was created according to God,« as if to say, believe in him who was created by God »according to God,« the Word in God. And the phrase »created according to God« can indicate the end of progress which man is to reach, equally with »receive the end for which you were created.« And still more clearly and explicitly he says elsewhere: »who is the image of the invisible God«; then he adds, »firstborn of all creation.« For he calls the Son of the Word in identity the »image of the invisible God,« and »firstborn of all creation,« because, having been generated impassibly, he became creator and originator of all creation and substance. For in him the Father made all things. Hence it is said that he »took the form of a slave,« not only the flesh at the advent, but also the substance from the underlying matter; and substance is a slave, as being passive and subject to the active and most sovereign cause.

For the phrase, "I begot you before the morning star," we understand it thus concerning the first-created divine Word, and "before the sun" and moon and before all creation "your name." As for the phrase, "He made them according to the image of God, male and female he made them," the Valentinians say that the best projection of Sophia is spoken of, from which the masculine elements are the election, the feminine elements the calling, and they call the masculine elements angelic, the feminine elements themselves, the superior seed. Thus also in the case of Adam, the masculine element remained with him, but all the feminine seed, taken from him, became Eve, from whom come females, as from him come males. Therefore the masculine elements were contracted with the Word, while the feminine elements, having been masculinized, are united with the angels and proceed into the Pleroma. For this reason, the woman is said to be transformed into a man, and the church here into angels. And when the apostle says, "For what will those who are baptized do on behalf of the dead?" — for on our behalf, he says, the angels were baptized, of whom we are parts. And we are the dead, those who have been deadened by this constitution, while the living are the males who have not partaken of this constitution. "If the dead are not raised, why are we baptized?" Therefore we are raised, restored as equal to the angels to the males, the limbs to the limbs, into unity. And "those who are baptized," they say, "on behalf of [us] the dead" are the angels who are baptized on our behalf, so that we, having the name, may not be hindered, prevented from passing into the Pleroma by Horos and the Cross. Hence also in the laying on of hands they say at the end, "for angelic redemption," that is, the redemption which the angels also have.

so that the baptized one who has obtained the redemption bears the same name as that by which his angel was previously baptized. And in the beginning the angels were baptized in the redemption of the name which came down upon Jesus in the dove and redeemed him. And Jesus also had need of redemption, lest he be detained by the Thought in which he was placed, approaching the deficiency through Wisdom, as Theodotus says. The followers of Valentinus call Jesus the Paraclete, because he came full of the Aeons, as having proceeded from the Whole. For Christ, having left behind the Sophia that projected him, entered the Pleroma and, on behalf of the Sophia left outside, requested assistance. And by the good will of the Aeons, Jesus is projected as a Paraclete to the Aeon that had passed away. And in the type of the Paraclete, Paul became the apostle of resurrection. Immediately after the Lord's passion, he was sent to preach; therefore he proclaimed the Savior in two ways: as generable and passible for the left-hand ones, because those who were able to know him according to this place feared him, and as spiritual, from the Holy Spirit and a virgin, as the right-hand angels know. For each one knows the Lord in his own way, and not all alike: "the angels of these see the face of the Father," the small ones, the elect, those who will be in the same inheritance and perfection. Perhaps the face is both the Son, and also that which is comprehensible of the Father, which they, having been taught through the Son, contemplate; but the rest of the Father is unknowable.

The Valentinians say that what each of the prophets had as a special spirit for service was poured out upon all the members of the church; hence the signs of the spirit, healings and prophecies, are accomplished through the church. But they are ignorant that the Paraclete, who now works directly in the church, is of the same substance and power as the one who worked directly under the old covenant. Those from Valentinus defined the angel as a word having the announcement of the one who is. And they say that the aeons are also called words, homonymously with the word. The apostles, they say, were transferred to the twelve zodiac signs. For as generation is governed by those, so regeneration is overseen by the apostles. The visible part of Jesus was Sophia and the Church of the superior seeds, which he clothed himself with through the fleshly body, as Theodotus says; the invisible part is the name, which is the only-begotten son. Hence when he says, "I am the door," he means this: that up to the boundary where I am, you who are of the superior seed will come; but when he himself enters, the seed also enters with him into the pleroma, gathered and brought in through the door.

The priest, entering within the second veil, would lay aside the petalon beside the altar of incense, and he himself, holding in silence the name engraved in the heart, would enter, indicating the laying aside of the petalon, as it were of pure gold, having become purified and light through purification, the laying aside of the body of the soul, as it were, in which the brightness of piety was engraved, through which, wearing the name, he was known to the principalities and powers. He lays aside this body, the petalon having become weightless, within the second veil, in the intelligible world, which is the second general veil of the whole, beside the altar of incense, beside the angels, the ministers of the prayers that are borne upward. But the soul, naked, in the power of conscience, having become, as it were, a body of power, passes over into the spiritual things. Having become truly rational and high-priestly, as if ensouled, so to speak, by the Word directly now, just as the archangels become high priests of the angels, and again the first-created of these. And where is there still any accomplishment of scripture and learning for that soul which has become pure, where it is deemed worthy to see God “face to face”? For having surpassed even the angelic teaching and the name taught in writing, it comes to the knowledge and comprehension of realities. No longer a bride, but having already become Word and dwelling with the bridegroom among the first-called and first-created. Friends through love, sons through teaching and obedience, brothers through the commonality of generation.

Thus the wearing of the petalon and learning for knowledge belonged to the economy, while the becoming God-bearing of the man, being directly energized by the Lord and becoming like his body, belonged to the power. Those from Basilides say, "God repaying to the third and fourth generation the disobedient," according to the reincarnations; but those from Valentinus say that the three left places are indicated, and the fourth generation their seeds, and "doing mercy to thousands" refers to the right. Silence, they say, being the mother of all that was projected from the Depth. What could not be spoken, it kept silent about the ineffable; what it grasped, it named incomprehensible. Then, forgetting the glory of God, they impiously say that he suffered. For what the Father sympathized with, being firm and unyielding by nature, says Theodotus, and having offered himself as yielding so that silence might grasp this, is passion. For sympathy is the passion of one due to the passion of another. Indeed, when the passion occurred, the whole sympathized and itself for the correction of the one who suffered.

But if the one who descended was the good pleasure of the whole (for in him the entire pleroma was present bodily), and this one suffered, it is clear that the seeds in him also suffered along with him, through which the whole and the all are found to be suffering. And also through the passion of the twelfth aeon, all things, being educated, as they say, suffered along with him. For then they recognized that what they are, they are by the grace of the Father—a name without a name, form and knowledge. But the aeon that willed to receive what is beyond knowledge became in ignorance and formlessness. Hence it produced a void of knowledge, which is a shadow of the name; which is the Son, the form of the aeons. Thus the partial name of the aeons is a loss of the name. In the pleroma, then, since there is unity, each of the aeons has its own pleroma, the syzygy. Therefore, as they say, whatever proceeds from a syzygy is a pleroma, but whatever proceeds from a single one is an image. Hence Theodotus called Christ, who proceeded from the thought of Sophia, an image of the pleroma. And this one, having left his mother behind, ascended into the pleroma.

was mingled, as with the whole, so also with the Paraclete. Christ, however, became adopted, as being chosen for the pleromas and "firstborn" of the things here. This teaching, then, is a mishearing of our own, which from the underlying text calls the Savior "firstborn," and he is, as it were, our root and head, while the church is his fruits. Christ, they say, having fled the unsuitable and withdrawn into the pleroma, having come from the maternal thought, the mother in turn brought forth the ruler of the economy in place of the one who had fled her, according to her own longing for him, since he was superior, who was a type of the father of all. Hence he becomes inferior, as being constituted from the passion of desire. She was disgusted, however, when she saw his severity, as they themselves say. But also the left-hand powers, having been projected first by her before the right-hand ones, are not formed by the presence of the light, but the left-hand ones were left behind to be formed by the Place. When the mother, then, together with the son and the seeds, enters into the pleroma, then the Place will receive the authority of the mother and the rank which the mother now holds.

Jesus, "our light," as the apostle says, having "emptied" himself, that is, having gone outside the Horos according to Theodotus, since he was an angel of the pleroma, brought out with himself the angels of the superior seed. And he himself had the redemption as one who had come forth from the pleroma, but he led the angels to the correction of the seed. For, as if on behalf of a part, they are in need and entreat, and being detained on our account, they hasten to enter, asking for release for us, so that we might enter together with them. For they almost have need of us in order to enter, since without us it is not permitted to them (for this reason, they say, the mother did not come together without us). Naturally, then, they entreat on our behalf. In unity, however, our angels were projected, they say, being one, as having come forth from one. But since we are the divided ones, for this reason Jesus was baptized, so that the undivided might be divided, until he unites us with them into the pleroma, so that we, the many having become one, might all be mingled with the one who was divided for our sake.

Those who came forth from Adam, the righteous ones making their way through the created realm, were detained near the Place according to the Valentinians, while the others were in the created realm of darkness on the left, having a perception of the fire. A river of fire flows out from beneath the throne of the Place, and streams into the void of the created realm, which is Gehenna, never filled from the flowing of the fire since its creation; and the Place itself is fiery. For this reason, it is said, it has a curtain, so that the spirits may not be consumed by the sight of it; only the archangel enters into it, after whose image the high priest also entered once a year into the holy of holies. Hence Jesus, having been entreated, sat down together with the Place, so that the spirits might remain and not rise up before him, and so that he might tame the Place and provide a passage for the seed into the pleroma. The Mother, having projected Christ entire and having been abandoned by him, thereafter projected nothing entire. But she retained the powerful things within herself, so that she projects the angelic things of the Place and of the called ones, keeping them within herself, while the angelic things of the elect had been projected earlier by the male.

The right-hand things were brought forth by the Mother before the request for light, but the seeds of the Church after the request for light, when the angelic seeds were projected by the male. The superior seeds, he says, came forth neither as affections, for if these were dissolved the seeds would have been dissolved along with them, nor as a creation, but as children. For if creation were completed, the seeds would have been completed along with it. Hence the seed has affinity with the light which the Christ who requested the aeons first brought forth, that is, Jesus, in which the seeds that came together with him into the Pleroma were strained through according to potential. Therefore it is rightly said that the Church was chosen before the foundation of the world. So, they say, we were reckoned and manifested in the beginning. For this reason the Savior says, "Let your light shine," indicating the light that appeared and gave form, concerning which the Apostle says, "which enlightens every man coming into the world," that is, the man of the superior seed. For when the man was enlightened, then he came into the world, that is, he adorned himself, separating from himself the passions that darken and are mixed together with him. And the Demiurge, attending to Ennoia, brought forth Adam at the end of the creation.

The Cross is the sign of the Limit in the Pleroma; for it separates the unbelievers from the believers, as that separates the cosmos from the Pleroma. Therefore Jesus, carrying the seeds through the sign upon his shoulders, introduces them into the Pleroma. For Jesus is called the shoulders of the seed, and Christ the head. Hence it is said: "He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not my brother." So he took up the body of Jesus, which was consubstantial with the Church. They say, then, that the right-hand ones knew the names of Jesus and Christ even before the Parousia, but they did not know the power of the sign. And when the Father had given all authority, and the Pleroma had also consented, "the angel of the Council" is sent forth. And he becomes the head of all things after the Father; "for in him were created all things visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, kingdoms, divinities, ministries." "Therefore God also exalted him and gave him a name above every name, so that every knee might bow and every tongue confess that the Lord of glory is Jesus Christ Savior," "he himself ascending and descending; for what is 'he ascended' except that he also descended? He who descended is the same one who went into the lowest parts of the earth and ascended above the heavens.

When Sophia saw him, resembling the light that had left her, she recognized him and ran to him, rejoiced and worshipped him; but when she beheld the male angels sent out with him, she felt shame and put on a veil. Because of this mystery Paul commands women “to wear authority on their head on account of the angels.” Immediately then the Saviour bestows upon her a formation according to knowledge and a healing of the passions, having shown from the unbegotten Father the things in the Pleroma and those extending as far as herself; and having separated the passions from the one who had suffered, he rendered her passionless, but he preserved the passions, having distinguished them; and they were not dispersed like those of the interior, but he brought them and the things of the second disposition into substance. Thus through the appearance of the Saviour, Sophia becomes passionless and the external things are created. “For all things came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being.” First, then, from an incorporeal passion and an accident, he transferred and changed them into incorporeal matter still, and then in this way into compounds and bodies; for it was not possible for the passions to produce substance all at once; and he implanted in the bodies a suitability according to nature. First, then, the Saviour becomes the universal demiurge. “And Sophia” secondly “builds a house for herself and sets up seven pillars.

And first of all he projects an image of the father, a god, through whom he made the heaven and the earth, that is, "the heavenly and the earthly," the right and the left. This one, as an image of the father, becomes a father and projects first the psychic Christ as an image of the son, then the archangels as images of the aeons, then angels as images of the archangels, from the psychic and luminous substance, which the prophetic word calls "and the spirit of God was borne over the waters," speaking of the pure as "borne over" according to the interweaving of the two substances made by him. But the heavy and material is borne under, the turbid and thick. And it hints that this too was incorporeal in the beginning by saying "invisible"; for it was invisible neither to man, who did not yet exist, nor to God, for he was creating; but it proclaimed its formless, shapeless, and unfigured state in this way. Having separated the pure from the heavy, the Demiurge, as if looking into the nature of each, made light, that is, he manifested and brought it to light and form, since the solar and heavenly light is produced much later; and from the material things he makes, on the one hand, from grief, substantially creating "spiritual things of wickedness, against which our struggle is"; whence the apostle says: "and do not grieve the holy spirit of God, in which you were sealed"; and on the other hand, from fear, the wild beasts, and from shock and perplexity, the elements of the cosmos. In the three elements, fire is suspended, scattered, and lurks, and is kindled by them and dies with them, not having a place set apart for itself as the other elements do.

from which the compounds are created. Since he did not know the power working through him, thinking he was creating by his own ability, being by nature industrious, for this reason the apostle said: "He was subjected to the vanity of the world, not willingly, but because of the one who subjected him, in hope that he himself also will be freed," when the seeds of God are gathered. The strongest evidence of his unwillingness is that he blesses the Sabbath and greatly cherishes rest from labors. "Taking dust from the earth," not from the dry earth, but a part of the manifold and varied matter, he fashioned a soul that is earthy and material, irrational and of the same substance as beasts; this is the "according to the image" man. But the one "according to the likeness" of the Creator himself is that man whom he "breathed into" and sowed into this one, placing something of the same substance as himself through angels; insofar as he is invisible and incorporeal, he called his substance "breath of life," but when formed it became "living soul," which he himself acknowledges in the prophetic writings.

Man, then, is in man, the psychic in the earthy, not part with part, but whole with whole united, by the ineffable power of God; whence in paradise, the fourth heaven, he is created; for earthy flesh does not ascend there, but the material flesh was like flesh to the divine soul. These things signify "this now bone from my bones," hinting at the divine soul hidden in the flesh, solid, hard to affect, and more powerful, "and flesh from my flesh," the material soul being the body of the divine soul. Concerning these two, the Savior also says that one must fear the one who can destroy this soul and this psychic body in Gehenna. This little flesh the Savior called "adversary," and Paul "a law warring against the law of my mind," and he exhorts to "bind" and "snatch away the vessels as of a strong one," of that which wars against the heavenly soul. The Savior also exhorts to "be rid of it along the way, lest we fall into prison and punishment"; and likewise to "be well-disposed toward it," not by nourishing and strengthening it with the power of sins, but by already mortifying it here and rendering it evanescent through abstinence from wickedness, so that in this dissolution it may be dispersed and breathed away unnoticed, but not, having taken on some subsistence of its own, retain its persistent strength in the passage through fire.

This is called a "weed," grown together with the soul, with the good seed; this is also the seed of the devil, being of the same substance as him, and a serpent, and a heel-biter, and a robber attacking the head of a king. But Adam had, unknown to him, the spiritual seed sown into his soul by Sophia: "It was arranged," it says, "through angels in the hand of a mediator; but the mediator is not of one; and God is one." Through the male angels, then, the seeds projected by Sophia for generation are ministered, insofar as it is possible for them to come into being. For just as the Demiurge, moved invisibly by Sophia, thinks himself self-moved, so also do men. First, then, Sophia projected the spiritual seed in Adam, so that it might be the bone. The rational and heavenly soul, not empty, but full of spiritual marrow. From Adam three natures are generated: first, the irrational, of which Cain was; second, the rational and just, of which Abel was; third, the spiritual, of which Seth was. And the earthy is "according to the image," the psychic "according to the likeness" of God, the spiritual according to his own. Concerning these three, apart from the other children of Adam, it is said: "This is the book of the generation of men." And that Seth is spiritual: he neither shepherds nor farms, but bears fruit as a child, as spiritual things do; and this one, who "hoped to call upon the name of the Lord," looking upward, whose "citizenship is in heaven," the world does not contain.

To the three incorporeal elements in Adam a fourth is added, the earthy, who puts on the "leather tunics." So Adam does not sow either from the spirit or from the breath; for both are divine. And through him, but not by him, both are projected; but his material part is active for seed and generation, as being mingled with the seed and unable to depart from this harmony in life. According to this, Adam is our father. "The first man is from earth, earthy." But if he had sown from the psychic and from the pneumatic as well as from the material, all would have been equal and just, and the teaching would have been in all. For this reason the material are many, the psychic not many; the pneumatic are rare. Now the pneumatic is saved by nature. The psychic, being self-determined, has aptitude both for faith and incorruption and for unbelief and corruption according to its own choice, while the material is destroyed by nature. When, then, the psychic are "grafted into the good olive" for faith and incorruption and partake "of the richness of the olive." And when "the nations enter." Then "thus all Israel will be saved." Israel is allegorized as the spiritual one who sees God, the genuine son of the faithful Abraham, the one "from the free woman," not the one "according to the flesh," the one from the Egyptian slave woman.

Thus from the three races there occurs a formation of the spiritual, and a transposition of the psychic from slavery to freedom. After the kingdom of death, then, the promise, made great and fair, has nevertheless become a service of death. When every principality and divinity had renounced, the great contestant Jesus [Christ], having taken up the church in himself by power—the elect and the called—the spiritual from the mother, the psychic from the economy, he saved and raised up what he had taken up, and through them also the things consubstantial with them. "For if the firstfruits are holy, so is the whole batch; if the root is holy, so are the branches." Now first he put on the seed from the mother, not being contained by it, but containing it by power. This is gradually formed through knowledge. And having come into the Place, Jesus Christ found that he had to put on the one proclaimed beforehand, whom the prophets and the law announced, who is an image of the Savior. But this psychic Christ, whom he put on, was invisible. But he who was to arrive in the world, in order to be seen, to be grasped, to live as a citizen, and to endure a perceptible body—a body is woven for him from the invisible psychic substance, by divine construction, since he had arrived in the perceptible world.

Therefore, "the Holy Spirit will come upon you" refers to the generation of the Lord's body, and "the power of the Most High will overshadow you" indicates the formation of God, which he imprinted upon the body in the virgin. That he himself was other than what he assumed is clear from what he confesses: "I am the life, I am the truth, I and the Father are one." And the spiritual element, which he assumed, and the psychic element, he indicates thus: "The child grew and advanced in wisdom." For the spiritual requires wisdom, and the psychic requires magnitude. And through the streams from the side, he indicated that the substances, having become impassible through the effluxes of the passions from the passible ones, are saved. And when he says, "The Son of Man must be rejected, insulted, crucified," he appears to speak of another, namely the passible one. And he says, "I will lead you on the third day into Galilee"; for he himself leads all. And he hinted that he would raise the soul, which is invisibly saved, and restore it to where he now leads. He died because the spirit that descended upon him at the Jordan withdrew, not having become his own, but having been contracted, so that death might act, for how could the body die while life was present in it? For then death would have prevailed even over the Savior himself, which is absurd. Death was outwitted by a stratagem; for when the body died and death had taken hold of it, the Savior, sending forth the ray of power that had come upon him, destroyed death. And having cast off the mortal body, he raised the passions. Thus the psychic elements are raised and restored. The spiritual elements, having believed, are saved beyond those.

garments of marriage" having taken the souls. Now the psychic Christ sits on the right of the Demiurge. As also David says, "Sit at my right hand," and so forth. And he sits until the consummation, "so that they may see whom they pierced." They pierced the visible, which was the flesh of the psychic. "For his bone will not be broken," it says; just as in the case of Adam, the prophecy allegorized the soul as a bone. For this soul of Christ, when the body suffered, deposited itself into the hands of the Father. But the spiritual element in the bone is no longer deposited, but itself saves. Now the rest of the spirituals is on the Lord's day, in the Ogdoad, which is called the Lord's day, with the Mother, having the souls, the garments, until the consummation. But the other faithful souls are with the Demiurge, and around the consummation they too withdraw into the Ogdoad. Then the wedding feast is common to all who are saved, until everything is equalized and recognizes each other. And from there, the spirituals, having laid aside the souls together with the

the bridegroom being brought to the mother. They themselves are brought to their own bridegrooms, the angels. They enter the bridal chamber within Horos and come to the vision of the Father, having become intellectual aeons. They enter into the intellectual and eternal marriages of the syzygy. The one who is "chief steward" of the supper, and "best man" of the wedding, "friend of the bridegroom, standing before the bridal chamber, hearing the voice of the bridegroom, rejoices with joy." This is "his fullness of joy" and of rest. The Savior taught the apostles, first things typologically and mystically, second things parabolically and enigmatically, and third things clearly and nakedly in private. "When we were in the flesh," says the apostle, speaking as if already outside the body. He says that "flesh" means that weakness, the projection from the woman above. And when the Savior says to Salome that death exists until then, until women give birth, he was not disparaging birth, which is necessary for the salvation of believers; for this birth must exist until the seed that was preordained is brought forth. But he is hinting at the female above, whose passions became creation, she who also projected the formless substances, on account of which the Lord also came down, to draw us away from passion and to adopt us to himself.

As long as we were children of the female alone, as of a shameful union, we were imperfect, infants, foolish, weak, and formless, like miscarriages brought forth; we were children of the woman. But having been formed by the Saviour, we have become children of the man and of the bridal chamber. Fate is a conjunction of many and opposing powers; these are invisible and imperceptible, governing the motion of the stars and administering through them. For as each of them, being carried along with the movement of the cosmos, has reached its own point, it receives dominion over those born at that very moment, as its own children. Through the fixed and wandering stars, therefore, the invisible powers mounted upon them administer births and oversee them. The stars themselves do nothing, but indicate the activity of the ruling powers, just as the flight of birds signifies something, not produces it. The twelve zodiacal signs and the seven stars that traverse them, sometimes in conjunction, sometimes in opposition, rising and setting—these, moved by the powers, indicate a motion of substance toward the generation of living beings and the change of circumstances. The stars and the powers are various, beneficent and maleficent, right and left, of which the offspring is common. Each thing comes to be through them at its own time, the dominant power accomplishing what is according to nature, some at the beginning, some at the end.

From this conflict and battle of the powers the Lord rescues us and provides peace from the array of the powers and of the angels, of whom some are arrayed on our behalf, others against us. For some resemble soldiers, fighting as allies for us, as servants of God, while others resemble bandits; for the evil one did not gird himself with the sword received from the king, but seized it for himself out of audacity. Because of the opposing ones, who through the body and external things assault the soul and take it as a pledge into slavery, the right-hand powers are not sufficient, even when following along, to save and guard us. For they are not fully provident, like the good shepherd, but each is like a hired hand who sees the wolf approaching and flees, and is not eager to give his life for his own sheep. Moreover, the human being, for whom the battle is fought, being a weak creature, is prone to the worse and sides with those who hate; hence the evils that befall him are more numerous.

For this reason the Lord came down to make peace from heaven for those on earth, as the apostle says: “Peace on earth and glory in the highest.” For this reason a strange and new star arose, dissolving the old astral order with a new light, not shining with a cosmic light, turning new and salvific paths, just as the Lord himself, the guide of men, came down to earth in order to transfer those who believe in Christ from Fate to his providence. That Fate exists for others, they say, the predictions of outcomes show, and a clear proof is also the study of the sciences. For instance, the Magi not only saw the star of the Lord, but also recognized the truth, that a king was born and of what kind of king, that he was pious; at that time the Jews alone were renowned for piety. For this reason indeed the Savior, coming down to the pious, came first to those who at that time were bearing a reputation for piety. Just as the birth of the Savior cast us out of generation and Fate, so also his baptism delivered us from fire, and his passion from passion, so that in all things we might follow him. For he who is baptized into God has advanced into God and has received “authority to walk over scorpions and snakes,” the evil powers. And he commands the apostles: “Go about, preach, and baptize those who believe in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Into these we are reborn, becoming superior to all the remaining powers.

For this reason death and the end of the old life is called baptism, when we renounce the evil powers, and life according to Christ, of which he alone is lord. The power of the change in the baptized is not concerning the body (for the same person emerges), but concerning the soul. Immediately upon emerging from baptism, one is called a servant of God and lord of the unclean spirits, and those who shortly before were active against him now “shudder” at him. Up to baptism, then, they say, Fate is true, but after this the astrologers no longer speak truly. But it is not only the bath that frees, but also knowledge: what we were, what we have become; where we were, [or] where we were cast; where we hasten, from what we are redeemed; what birth is, what rebirth is. As long as the seed is still unformed, they say, it is the child of a female; but when formed, it is transferred into a male and becomes a son of the bridegroom, no longer weak and subject to cosmic things both visible and invisible, but, having become manly, it becomes a male fruit.

The child born of a mother is led to death and into the world, but the one reborn by Christ is transferred into life, into the ogdoad; and they die to the world, but live to God, so that death is dissolved by death, and corruption by resurrection. For having been sealed through Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he is immune to every other power, and through three names he is freed from the entire triad in corruption: "having put off the image of the earthly, he then puts on the image of the heavenly." Fire is twofold in nature: the corporeal fire touches all bodies, but the pure and incorporeal fire, they say, touches incorporeal things, such as demons, angels of wickedness, and the devil himself. Thus the heavenly and the earthly fire are twofold in nature, the one intelligible, the other sensible. Baptism, therefore, is also twofold analogously: the sensible one through water, which extinguishes sensible fire, and the intelligible one through spirit, which wards off intelligible fire. And the corporeal spirit, being small, becomes food and fuel for sensible fire, but when it becomes greater, it naturally extinguishes it; the spirit given to us from above, being incorporeal, prevails not only over elements but also over powers and evil principalities.

The bread and the oil are sanctified by the power of the name of God, being the same in appearance as when they were taken; but in power they have been changed into spiritual power. So also the water, both that which is exorcised and that which becomes baptism, not only separates the worse but also receives sanctification. It is fitting to come to baptism rejoicing, but since unclean spirits often descend together with some, which, accompanying and obtaining the seal along with the man, become incurable for the man of the seal thereafter, fear is interwoven with joy, so that one may descend alone, pure. For this reason there are fasts, supplications, prayers, raising of hands, genuflections, because a soul is rescued from the world and "from the mouth of lions," whence also there are immediately temptations, as those from whom it was taken are indignant, and even if one bears it with foreknowledge, at least the external things are shaken. Immediately after his baptism the Lord is shaken for our sake and first becomes "with the beasts" in the desert, then, having mastered them and their ruler, as a true king already, he is served by angels. For he who has mastered angels in the flesh is rightly served by angels. Therefore one must be armed with the Lord's weapons, keeping the body and the soul unwounded, "with weapons able to quench the arrows of the devil," as the apostle says.

Concerning the coin presented, the Lord said not "whose property is it?" but "whose image and inscription is it? Caesar's;" so that it might be given to him to whom it belongs. Likewise the faithful one: he bears through Christ the name of God as an inscription, and the spirit as an image. Even irrational animals show by a seal whose each one is, and are claimed by the seal; so also the faithful soul, having received the seal of truth, bears "the marks of Christ." These are "the children already resting in the bed" and "the wise virgins," whom the others, those who are yet to come, did not enter with into the "prepared good things, into which angels desire to look." "Father," he says, "I entrust my spirit into your hands." That which Wisdom projected, he says, a little flesh to the Word, the spiritual seed, having clothed himself with this, the Savior descended. Hence in the passion he entrusts Wisdom to the Father, that he might receive her back from the Father and not be detained here by those able to deprive; thus every spiritual seed, the elect, is entrusted through the aforementioned utterance. We call the elect seed also a spark kindled by the Word, and the pupil of the eye, and a grain of mustard, and leaven unifying into faith the kinds that seemed to be divided. The followers of Valentinus say that when the psychic body was formed, into the elect soul being in sleep, a masculine seed was implanted by the Word. Which is an emanation from the angelic, so that there be no deficiency. And this leavened, unifying what seemed to be divided, the soul and the flesh. Which were also brought forth in division by Wisdom.

Sleep, however, was Adam; it was forgetfulness of the soul, which prevented the spiritual seed, which the Savior implanted in the soul, from being dissolved. The seed was an emanation of the male and angelic. For this reason the Savior says: "Save yourself and your soul." So the Savior, having come, awakened the soul and kindled the spark; for the words of the Lord are power. For this reason he said: "Let your light shine before men." And after the resurrection, breathing the spirit into the apostles, he blew away the dust, like ash, and separated it, and kindled the spark and rekindled it. The Lord, out of great humility, did not appear as an angel, but as a man; and when he appeared in glory to the apostles on the mountain, he did not do so for his own sake, showing himself, but for the church, which is "the elect race," so that it might learn its progress after departure from the flesh. For he himself was and is light above, the one that appeared in flesh, and that which was seen here is not later than that above. Nor was he interrupted; he moved from above to here, changing place from place, not taking one and leaving another; but he was the one who is entirely, both with the Father and here; for he was the power of the Father. Moreover, it was necessary that the saying of the Savior be fulfilled, which he spoke: "There are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man in glory." So Peter, James, and John saw and fell asleep. How then, having seen the luminous vision, were they not astonished, but having heard the voice, they fell to the ground? Because ears are more untrustworthy than eyes, and a voice beyond expectation astonishes more.

John the Baptist, having heard the voice, was not afraid, as one who, hearing in spirit, was accustomed to such a voice; but insofar as he is merely a man, having heard, he was astonished. Therefore the Savior says to them: "Tell no one what you have seen." Yet they had not seen the light with fleshly eyes (for nothing akin and familiar to that light and this flesh exists), but as the power and will of the Savior empowered the flesh to behold; moreover, what the soul saw, it imparted to the flesh communing with it because of its interweaving with it. And the "Tell no one" is so that, understanding who the Lord is, they might refrain from laying hands on the Lord and the economy might not be left incomplete, and death might be kept from the Lord, as one tempting in vain for an impossible outcome. And further, the voice on the mountain was for those already understanding, the elect, wherefore they marveled at the testimony of the one in whom they believed, but the voice at the river was for those who were about to believe. Wherefore the voice was neglected by them, being preoccupied with the instruction of the teachers of the law. The Valentinians interpret "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" as follows. They call the beginning the Only-Begotten, who is also addressed as God, as in what follows he plainly declares him God, saying: "The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, that one expounded." And by the Word in the beginning, that is, in the Only-Begotten, in the Mind and the Truth, he indicates Christ, the Word and the Life; whence he fittingly calls him God, who is in God the Mind. "What came to be in him," the Word, "was life," the consort.

Therefore the Lord says, "I am the life." The Father, being unknown, wished to be known by the aeons, and through his own thought, as one who had known himself, he projected the Only-Begotten as a spirit of knowledge existing in knowledge. Thus that which proceeds from knowledge—that is, from the Father's thought—became knowledge when it came forth; that is, the Son, because "the Father is known through the Son." The spirit of love is mingled with that of knowledge, as Father with Son and thought with truth. Knowledge proceeds from truth as from thought. And the one who remained "Only-Begotten Son in the bosom of the Father" explains the thought to the aeons through knowledge, as if projected from his bosom; but the one seen here is no longer called "Only-Begotten" but "as Only-Begotten" by the apostle, "glory as of an only-begotten," because, being one and the same, in creation he is "firstborn" Jesus, but in the pleroma he is Only-Begotten. And he himself is such in each place as each can contain. And the one who descended is never separated from the one who remained. For the apostle says, "The one who ascended is the same as the one who descended." They call the Demiurge an image of the Only-Begotten. Hence the works of the image are dissoluble; thus the Lord, having made the dead whom he raised an image of the spiritual resurrection, did not raise them with imperishable flesh, but as those who would die again. But we say that the Word in identity is God in God, who is said to be "in the bosom of the Father," without interval, undivided, one God. "All things came to be through him.

according to the proximate activity of the Logos in identity, the spiritual, the intelligible, and the sensible. "This one unfolded the bosom of the Father." The Saviour and [Isaiah: "And I will repay their works into their bosom," into their thought which is in the soul, from which it first acts] "firstborn of all creation." The only-begotten in identity, by whose undivided power the Saviour acts, is "the light" of the church which was formerly in darkness and ignorance. "And the darkness did not overtake him"; the apostates and the rest of men did not know him, and death did not seize him. Faith is not one, but diverse. Indeed the Saviour says: "Let it be according to your faith"; whence it is said that the men of the calling will be led astray at the coming of the Antichrist; but it is impossible for the elect; therefore he says: "And if possible, my elect." Again, when he says "Depart from the house of my father," he speaks to the called; again, to the one who came from abroad and had consumed the possessions, for whom he sacrificed the fatted calf, he speaks of the calling. And where the king invited those on the roads to the wedding feast. All are called equally ("for it rains on the just and the unjust, and the sun shines on all"), but those who have believed more are chosen, to whom he says: "No one has seen my father except the Son"; and: "You are the light of the world"; and:

Father holy, sanctify them in your name." But neither the spiritual and intellectual beings, nor the archangels, nor the first-created, nor indeed even he himself is formless, shapeless, figureless, and bodiless; rather, he has his own form and a body proportionate to his superiority over all spiritual beings, just as the first-created also have a form and body proportionate to their superiority over the substances below them. For the generated is not entirely without substance, but they do not have form and body like the bodies in this world. For here there are male and female and differences among them; but there the only-begotten, being specifically intellectual, employing his own form and his own substance, is supremely pure and most authoritative, directly enjoying the power of the Father. The first-created, even if they are numerically distinct and each is limited and circumscribed, yet the likeness of their things indicates unity, equality, and similarity. For not more is given to one and less to another among the seven. Nor is there any progress left for them, since they have received perfection from the beginning, at their first generation, from God through the Son. And one is called "inaccessible light," as "only-begotten" and "firstborn." "Which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man." Nor will there be any such, neither among the first-created nor among men. But they "continually behold the face of the Father," and the face of the Father is the Son, through whom the Father is known. Therefore, that which sees and is seen cannot be shapeless nor bodiless. And they see not with a sensible eye, but with one which the Father has provided, an intellectual eye.

Therefore, when the Lord says, "Do not despise one of these little ones; truly I say to you, their angels continually behold the face of the Father," this is like a prefiguration of what the elect will be like when they have attained perfect advancement: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." But how could the formless have a face? The apostle, at any rate, knows of celestial bodies that are beautiful and intelligible. And how could their different names be spoken, if they were not circumscribed by shapes, form, and body? "There is one glory of celestial beings, another of earthly beings, another of angels, another of archangels." In comparison with bodies here (such as stars), they are incorporeal and formless, but in comparison with the Son, they are measured and perceptible bodies. So also is the Son when compared with the Father. And each of the spiritual beings has its own power and its own administration. But insofar as the first-created came into being together and have received perfection, they share a common and undivided service. The first-created, then, see the Son, themselves, and those below them, just as the archangels see the first-created. The Son is the beginning of the vision of the Father, being called the face of the Father. And the angels are intelligible fire and intelligible spirits, their substance purified; the highest advancement is intelligible light, completely purified from intelligible fire, "into which angels desire to gaze." Peter says: The Son is even purer than this, "inaccessible light" and "power of God," and according to the apostle, "we were redeemed by precious, unblemished, and spotless blood.

...have become perfected. "His garments shone like light, and his face like the sun," which one cannot easily look upon. This is the "heavenly bread" and "spiritual food" productive of life, according to eating and knowledge, "the light of men"—of the church, clearly. Now those who ate the heavenly bread died, but he who eats the true bread of the spirit will not die. The living bread given by the Father is the Son for those who wish to eat; "and the bread which I will give," he says, "is my flesh"—that is, that by which the flesh is nourished through the Eucharist, or rather, the flesh is his body, "which is the church." "Heavenly bread" is a blessed congregation; perhaps because the elect are made from the same substance according to the underlying reality, and will attain the same end. The demons are called "incorporeal," not as lacking a body (for they have both a body and a shape; hence they also have perception of punishment), but they are called incorporeal in comparison with the spiritual bodies of the saved, being a shadow. And the angels are bodies; at any rate, they are seen. But also the soul is a body. The apostle says: "For a psychic body is sown, but a spiritual body is raised." How indeed do punished souls perceive, if they are not bodies? "Fear," he says, "the one who after death can cast both soul and body into Gehenna." For what is visible is not purified by fire, but is dissolved into earth. And directly from the story of Lazarus and the rich man, through the bodily members, the soul is shown to be a body.

Just as we have worn the image of the earthy, let us also wear the image of the heavenly," the spiritual, being perfected according to progress. Yet again he says "image," as if there are spiritual bodies. And again: "Now we see through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face." For immediately we begin to know * * . Whose face? And form and shape and body. Form is contemplated by form, and face by face, and the distinguishing marks are recognized by the forms and the substances. And the dove appeared as a body, which some say is the Holy Spirit, others from Basilides say it is the attendant, others from Valentinus say it is the spirit of the Father's thought, which made its descent upon the flesh of the Word. There is Jesus and the Church and Sophia; a mixture of bodies throughout is possible according to the Valentinians. For human mixture, that according to marriage, from two mixed seeds produces the generation of one child, and the body dissolved into earth is mixed with the earth, and water with wine. But the better and more distinct bodies have an easy mixture; for spirit is mixed with spirit. But it seems to me that this occurs by juxtaposition, not by mixture. Perhaps then the divine power, pervading the soul, sanctifies it according to the final progress. "For God is spirit, and he blows where he wills." For the power does not pervade according to substance, but according to power and strength, and the spirit lies alongside the spirit, as the spirit does with the soul.

The Savior appeared descending to the angels, on which account they also proclaimed him, but also to Abraham and the other righteous ones who were in the resting place on the right he appeared; for it says, "he rejoiced that he might see my day," the presence in the flesh. Whence the Lord, having risen, proclaimed the good news to the righteous who were in the resting place and transferred them and changed them, and all "will live in his shadow." For the presence here is a shadow of the glory of the Savior which is with the Father; and the shadow of light is not darkness, but illumination. "And the Word became flesh," not only by becoming man according to the presence, but also in the beginning the Word in identity, having become Son according to circumscription and not according to essence. And again he became flesh by working through the prophets; and the Savior is called a child of the Word in identity; on account of this "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was toward God; what has come to be in him is life"; and life is the Lord. And Paul says, "put on the new man who was created according to God." That is, believe in him who was created by God "according to God," the Word in God. And the phrase "created according to God" can indicate the end of progress which man is about to reach, equally with "receive the end for which you were created"; and yet more clearly and explicitly in other passages he says: "who is the image of the invisible God"; then he adds: "firstborn of all creation." For he calls the Son "image of the invisible God" of the Word in identity, and "firstborn of all creation," because having been born impassibly, he became creator and originator of all creation and substance.

For in him the father made all things. Hence it is also said that he "took the form of a slave," not only the flesh at the advent, but also the substance from the underlying matter; for substance is a slave, as being passive and subject to the active and most authoritative cause. For the saying, "I begot you before the morning star," we understand thus of the first-created divine word, and "before the sun" and moon and before all creation "your name." As for the phrase, "He made them according to the image of God, he made them male and female," the Valentinians say that the best projection of Wisdom is spoken of, from which the masculine are the election, the feminine the calling; and they call the masculine angelic, the feminine themselves, the superior seed. Thus also in the case of Adam, the masculine remained with him, but all the feminine seed taken from him became Eve, from whom come the females, as from him the males. So the masculine were contracted with the word, while the feminine, having become manly, are united with the angels and proceed into the pleroma. For this reason the woman is said to be transformed into a man, and the church here into angels. And when the apostle says, "Then what will those who are baptized for the dead do?" For us, he says, the angels were baptized, of whom we are parts. And we are the dead, who have been deadened by this constitution, while the living are the males who did not partake of this constitution. "If the dead do not rise, why are we baptized?" So we rise, restored as equal to the angels to the males, the members to the members, into unity.

Those who are baptized,” they say, “for [us] the dead,” are the angels who are baptized for us, so that we, having the name, may not be hindered, prevented from entering the Pleroma by Horos and the Cross. Therefore, at the laying on of hands, they say at the end, “for angelic redemption,” that is, the redemption which the angels also have. So that the baptized person is the one who has obtained the redemption by the same name by which his angel has been previously baptized. The angels were baptized at the beginning in the redemption of the name which came down upon Jesus in the dove and redeemed him. Jesus also needed redemption, so that he might not be detained by the Ennoia in which he was placed, approaching the deficiency through Sophia, as Theodotus says. The followers of Valentinus call Jesus the Paraclete, because he came full of the Aeons, having proceeded from the Whole. For Christ, having left behind Sophia who projected him, entered the Pleroma and requested help for Sophia who was left outside. And by the consent of the Aeons, Jesus is projected as a Paraclete for the Aeon that had passed. In the place of the Paraclete, Paul became the apostle of the resurrection. Immediately after the passion of the Lord, he himself was sent to preach. Therefore, he preached the Savior in two ways: as generated and passible for the left-hand powers, because they, having been able to know him in this place, are afraid; and as spiritual, from the Holy Spirit and a virgin, as the right-hand angels know. For each one knows the Lord in a particular way, and not all alike; “the angels of these see the face of the Father.

of the small ones, the elect, of those who will be in the same inheritance and perfection. Perhaps the face is both the Son, and also as much of the Father as is comprehensible, whom those taught through the Son contemplate; the rest of the Father is unknowable. The Valentinians say that what each of the prophets individually received as a special spirit for service, this was poured out upon all the members of the church. Hence the signs of the spirit, healings and prophecies, are accomplished through the church. But they are ignorant that the Paraclete, who now directly works in the church, is of the same substance and power as the one who directly worked in the Old Testament. The followers of Valentinus defined the angel as a word having the announcement of that which is. They also say that the aeons are homonymously called words, like the Word. The apostles, they say, were transferred to the twelve zodiacal signs. For as generation is governed by those, so regeneration is overseen by the apostles. The visible aspect of Jesus was Sophia and the Church of the superior seeds, which he clothed himself with through the flesh, as Theodotus says; the invisible aspect is the Name, which is the only-begotten Son. Hence when he says, “I am the door,” he means this: that as far as the boundary where I am, you who are of the superior seed will come; but when he himself enters, the seed also enters together with him into the Pleroma, gathered and brought in through the door.

The priest, entering within the second veil, would lay aside the petalon beside the altar of incense, and himself, bearing in silence the name engraved in the heart, would enter, indicating the laying aside of the petalon, as it were of pure gold, having become light through purification, the laying aside of the body, as it were, of the soul, in which was engraved the brightness of piety, through which, wearing the name, he was known to the principalities and powers. He lays aside this body, the petalon having become weightless, within the second veil, in the intelligible world, which is the second complete veil of the whole, beside the altar of incense, beside the angels, the ministers of the prayers that are borne upward. But the soul, naked, in the power of conscience, having become, as it were, the body of power, passes over into the spiritual things. Having become truly rational and high-priestly, as if ensouled, so to speak, by the Word directly now, just as the archangels become high priests of the angels, and again the first-created of these. But where is there still room for the correction of writing and learning for that soul which has become pure, where it is deemed worthy to see God “face to face”? For having surpassed the angelic teaching and the name taught in writing, it comes to the knowledge and comprehension of realities. No longer a bride, but having already become Word and lodging with the bridegroom among the first-called and first-created. Friends through love, sons through teaching and obedience, brothers through the commonality of origin.

Thus the wearing of the petalon and learning for knowledge pertained to the economy, while becoming God-bearing, with the man being directly energized by the Lord and becoming like his body, pertained to power. The saying, "God exacts punishment to the third and fourth generation upon the disobedient," is interpreted by the followers of Basilides in terms of reincarnations, while the followers of Valentinus understand it as indicating the three left-hand places, and the fourth generation as their seeds, and "doing mercy for thousands" as referring to the right-hand side. Silence, they say, is the mother of all that was projected from the Depth. What it could not express, it kept silent about concerning the ineffable; what it apprehended, it called incomprehensible. Then, forgetting the glory of God, they impiously say that he suffered. For what the Father sympathized with, being firm and unyielding by nature, says Theodotus, having made himself yielding so that Silence might apprehend it, is passion. For sympathy is the passion of one thing due to the passion of another. Indeed, when the passion occurred, the whole sympathized and itself contributed to the correction of the one who suffered. But if the one who descended was the good pleasure of the whole (for "in him the entire pleroma was bodily"), and this one suffered, it is clear that the seeds in him also sympathized, through which the whole and the all are found to be suffering. Moreover, through the suffering of the twelfth Aeon, all things, being disciplined as they say, sympathized. For then they recognized that what they are, they are by the grace of the Father—a nameless name, form, and knowledge. But the Aeon that willed to receive what is beyond knowledge fell into ignorance and formlessness. Hence it produced a void of knowledge, which is a shadow of the name.

which is the Son, the form of the Aeons. Thus the partial name of the Aeons is the destruction of the name. In the Pleroma, therefore, since there is unity, each of the Aeons has its own pleroma, the syzygy. So then, whatever proceeds from a syzygy, they say, is a pleroma, but whatever proceeds from a single one is an image. Hence Theodotus called Christ, who proceeded from the Ennoia of Sophia, an image of the pleroma. And he, having left his mother and ascended into the pleroma, was mingled, both with the wholes and also with the Paraclete. Christ indeed became adopted, being chosen in relation to the pleromas and being the "firstborn" of the things here. This teaching, then, is a mishearing of our own, from the underlying text which calls the Savior "firstborn," and he is, as it were, our root and head, while the church is his fruits. Christ, they say, having fled the unsuitable and having withdrawn into the pleroma, having come from the maternal Ennoia, the mother again brought forth the Ruler of the Economy in place of him who had fled her, according to her longing for him, since he was superior, who was a type of the Father of all. Hence he becomes inferior, as if composed from the passion of desire. She was disgusted, however, when she saw his severity, as they themselves say. But also the left-hand powers, first projected by her before the right-hand ones, are not formed by the presence of the light, but the left-hand ones were left behind to be formed by the Place. When the mother, then, together with the son and the seeds, enters into the pleroma, then the Place will receive the authority of the mother and the rank which the mother now holds.

Jesus is "the light" for us, as the apostle says. Having "emptied" himself, that is, having come outside the Horos according to Theodotus, since he was an angel of the Pleroma, he brought out with himself the angels of the superior seed. And he himself possessed the Redemption as one who had come forth from the Pleroma, but he led the angels to the correction of the seed. For as if on behalf of a part, they are in need and entreat, and being detained on our account, hastening to enter, they ask for release for us, so that we may enter together with them. For they almost have need of us in order to enter, since without us it is not permitted to them (for this reason, they say, not even the Mother has come together without us). Naturally, then, they entreat on our behalf. In unity, indeed, our angels were projected, they say, being one, as having come forth from one. But since we are the divided ones, for this reason Jesus was baptized, so that the undivided might be divided, until he unites us with them into the Pleroma, so that we, the many having become one, may all be mingled with the one who was divided for our sake. Those who came forth from Adam—the righteous ones, making their way through the created things, were detained in the Place according to the Valentinians, while the others were in the created realm of darkness on the left, having an awareness of the fire. A river of fire flows out from beneath the throne of the Place, and it streams into the void of the created realm, which is Gehenna, never being filled from the creation of the flowing fire; and the Place itself is fiery. For this reason, he says, it has a curtain, so that the spirits may not be consumed by the sight of it.

Only the archangel enters into him, in whose image also the high priest once a year entered into the holy of holies. Hence Jesus, having been called, sat together with the Place, so that the spirits might remain and not rise up before him, and so that he might tame the Place and provide a passage for the seed into the Pleroma. The Mother, having projected the Christ entire and having been abandoned by him, thereafter projected nothing entire. But she retained the powers within herself, so that she projects the angelic elements of the Place and of the called ones and retains them within herself, while the angelic elements of the elect had been projected earlier by the male. For the right-hand elements were brought forth by the Mother before the request for the light, but the seeds of the church after the request for the light, when the angelic elements of the seeds were projected by the male. The differing seeds, he says, have come forth neither as passions, whose dissolution would also dissolve the seeds, nor as a creation, but as children. For if the creation were being completed, the seeds would have been completed along with it; hence the seed has an affinity with the light, which the Christ who requested the aeons first brought forth, that is, Jesus, in which the seeds that came with him into the Pleroma were also strained through according to power; hence the church is rightly said to have been chosen before the foundation of the world. In the beginning, then, we were reckoned together, they say, and we were manifested. Therefore the Savior says, "Let your light shine," indicating the light that appeared and gave form, concerning which the apostle says:

Who illuminates every man coming into the world," that is, of the different seed. For when the man was illuminated, then he came into the world, that is, he adorned himself, having separated from himself the passions that darken and are mingled with him. And the Demiurge, having attended to Ennoia, brought forth Adam at the end of his creation. The Cross is a sign of the Horos in the Pleroma; for it separates the unbelievers from the believers, as that one separates the world from the Pleroma; therefore Jesus, carrying the seeds through the sign upon his shoulders, introduces them into the Pleroma. For Jesus is called the shoulders of the seed, and Christ the head. Hence it is said: "He who does not take up his cross and follow me is not my brother." So he took up the body of Jesus, which was consubstantial with the church. They say, then, that the right hands knew the names of Jesus and Christ even before the advent, but they did not know the power of the sign. And when the father had given all authority, and the Pleroma had consented, "the angel of the council" is sent forth. And he becomes the head of all things after the father; "for in him were created all things visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, kingdoms, divinities, ministries"; "therefore God also exalted him and gave him a name above every name, so that every knee might bend and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of Glory, Savior," "he himself having ascended and descended; for what is the meaning of 'he ascended' if not that he also descended?

The one who descended is the same who goes into the lowest parts of the earth and ascends above the heavens. When Sophia saw him, like the light that had left her, she recognized him and ran to him, and rejoiced and worshipped; but when she saw the male angels sent out with him, she felt shame and put on a veil. Through this mystery Paul commands women "to wear authority on their heads because of the angels." Immediately then the Savior brings to her a formation according to knowledge and a healing of the passions, having shown from the unbegotten Father the things in the Pleroma and those as far as herself. And having separated the passions from the one who had suffered, he rendered her passionless, but he preserved the passions after distinguishing them; and they were not dispersed like those of the interior, but he brought them and the things of the second disposition into substance. Thus through the Savior's manifestation Sophia becomes passionless, and the external things are created. "For all things came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being." First, then, from an incorporeal passion and an accident, he transferred and changed these into still incorporeal matter, and then in this way into compounds and bodies; for it was not possible to make substance from the passions all at once; and he implanted in the bodies a natural suitability. First, then, the Savior becomes the universal demiurge. "But Sophia" secondly "builds a house for herself and sets up seven pillars." And first of all she projects an image of the Father, a god, through whom she made the heaven and the earth, that is, "the heavenly and the earthly," the right and the left.

He becomes as an image of the father, a father, and first projects the psychic Christ as an image of the son, then the archangels as images of the aeons, then angels as images of the archangels, from the psychic and luminous substance, which the prophetic word calls "and the spirit of God was borne over the waters," speaking of the pure as "borne over" according to the interweaving of the two substances made by him. The heavy and material is borne under, the turbid and thick. And it hints that this was incorporeal in the beginning by saying "invisible"; for it was invisible neither to man, who did not yet exist, nor to God, for he was creating; but it thus expressed its formless, shapeless, and figureless state. Having distinguished the pure from the heavy, as if observing the nature of each, the Demiurge made light, that is, he manifested and brought it to light and form, since the solar and heavenly light is produced much later; and from the material things he makes, on the one hand, from grief, substantially creating "spiritual things of wickedness, against which is our struggle"; whence the apostle says: "and do not grieve the holy spirit of God, in which you were sealed"; and from fear, the beasts; and from that which comes from shock and perplexity, the elements of the world. In the three elements, fire is suspended, scattered, and lurks, and is kindled by them and dies with them, not having a separate place of its own as the other elements do. From these, compounds are created. Since he did not know the one acting through him, thinking he was creating by his own power, being by nature industrious, for this reason the apostle said:

He was subjected to the vanity of the world, not willingly, but through the one who subjected him, in hope that he himself also will be freed, when the seeds of God are gathered. The strongest evidence of his unwillingness is that he blesses the Sabbath and greatly cherishes rest from labors. "Taking dust from the earth"—not the dry earth, but a part of the manifold and variegated matter—he fashioned a soul that is earthy and irrational, consubstantial with that of beasts; this is the "according to image" man. But the "according to likeness" man is that of the Demiurge himself, whom he "breathed into" and sowed into this one, placing something consubstantial with himself through angels; insofar as he is invisible and incorporeal, he called his substance "breath of life," but when formed it became "living soul," which he himself acknowledges in the prophetic writings. So there is a man within a man, a psychic man within a choic man, not part with part, but whole with whole united, by an ineffable power of God; hence he is created in paradise, the fourth heaven, for choic flesh does not ascend there, but the material was like flesh to the divine soul. These things signify "this now bone from my bones"—it hints at the divine soul hidden in the flesh, solid, impassible, and more powerful—"and flesh from my flesh"—the material soul being the body of the divine soul. Concerning these two, the Savior says that one must fear the one who can destroy this soul and this psychic body in Gehenna.

This fleshly body the Savior called "adversary," and Paul "a law warring against the law of my mind," and he exhorts to "bind" it and "seize its vessels as of a strong opponent" who wars against the heavenly soul. The Savior also exhorts to "be rid of it along the way, lest we fall into prison and punishment"; likewise to "be well-disposed" toward it, not by feeding and strengthening it with the power of sins, but by already mortifying it here and rendering it extinct through abstinence from wickedness, so that in this dissolution it may be dispersed and dissipate unnoticed, rather than, having taken on some substance of its own, retain persistent strength in the passage through fire. This is called "tare," grown together with the soul, with the good seed; this is also the seed of the devil, as being of the same substance as him, and a serpent, and a heel-biter, and a robber attacking the head of a king. Adam had the spiritual seed sown invisibly into his soul by Wisdom: "It was arranged," it says, "through angels in the hand of a mediator; the mediator belongs to no one; God is one." Through the male angels, then, the seeds projected by Wisdom for generation are ministered, insofar as it is possible for them to come to be. For the Demiurge, moved invisibly by Wisdom, thinks himself self-moved; similarly also men. First, then, Wisdom projected the spiritual seed in Adam, so that it might be the bone—the rational and heavenly soul, not empty, but full of spiritual marrow. From Adam three natures are generated: first the irrational, of which Cain was; second the rational and just, of which Abel was; third the spiritual.

Of whom Seth was. And the earthy man is "according to the image." The psychic man is "according to the likeness" of God, and the pneumatic man is according to his own [nature], concerning which three, apart from the other children of Adam, it is said: "This is the book of the generation of men." And that Seth is pneumatic, he neither shepherds nor tills the soil, but bears a child as fruit, like the spiritual things; and this one, who "hoped to invoke the name of the Lord," looking upward. His "citizenship is in heaven," the world does not contain him. To the three incorporeal [elements] in Adam, the earthy one puts on as a fourth the "leather tunics." So Adam sows neither from the spirit nor from the breath; for both are divine. And through him, but not by him, both are projected; but his material [part] is active for seed and generation, as being blended with the seed and unable to depart from this harmony in life. According to this, Adam is our father. "The first man is from earthy earth." But if he had sown from the psychic and from the pneumatic as from the material, all would have been equal and righteous, and the teaching would have been in all. For this reason, the many are the material, not many are the psychic; the pneumatic are rare. The pneumatic, then, is saved by nature. The psychic, being self-determined, has capacity both for faith and incorruption and for unbelief and corruption according to its own choice, while the material perishes by nature. When, therefore, the psychic [elements] are "grafted into the wild olive" for faith and incorruption and partake "of the richness of the olive." And when "the nations enter." Then "thus all Israel will be saved.

Israel is allegorized as the spiritual man who will see God, the genuine son of faithful Abraham, "from the free woman," not the one "according to the flesh," from the Egyptian slave woman. Thus, from the three races, there occurs the formation of the spiritual man and the transposition of the psychic man from slavery to freedom. After the kingdom of death, then, having made a great and fair-faced promise, it has nonetheless become a service of death. When every beginning and divinity had renounced, the great contestant Jesus [Christ], having taken up the church in himself by power—the elect and the called—the spiritual from the mother, the psychic from the economy, he saved and raised up what he had taken up, and through them also those of like substance. "For if the firstfruit is holy, so is the whole batch; if the root is holy, so are the branches." Now, he first put on the seed from the mother, not being contained by it, but containing it by power. This is gradually formed through knowledge. And according to the Place, having come into being, Jesus Christ found that he had to put on the one proclaimed beforehand, whom the prophets and the law announced, being an image of the Savior. But this psychic Christ, whom he put on, was invisible. Yet it was necessary for the one arriving into the world, in order to be seen, grasped, to live as a citizen, and to endure a perceptible body. Therefore, a body is woven for him from the invisible psychic substance, by power of divine construction, having arrived into the perceptible world.

Therefore, "the Holy Spirit will come upon you" refers to the generation of the Lord's body, and "the power of the Most High will overshadow you" indicates the formation of God, which he imprinted upon the body in the virgin. That he himself was other than what he assumed is clear from what he confesses: "I am the life, I am the truth, I and the Father are one." The spiritual element which he assumed, and the psychic element, he indicates thus: "The child grew and advanced in wisdom." For the spiritual requires wisdom, while the psychic requires magnitude. Through the streams from the side, he signified that the substances, having become impassible through the efflux of passions from the passible ones, are saved. And when he says, "The Son of Man must be rejected, insulted, crucified," he appears to speak of another, evidently the passible one. And he says, "I will lead you on the third day into Galilee"; for he himself leads all things. And he intimated that he would raise the invisibly saved soul and restore it to where he now leads. He died when the spirit that descended upon him at the Jordan withdrew, not having become his own, but having been contracted, so that death might act, for how could the body die while life was present in it? For thus death would have prevailed even over the Savior himself, which is absurd. Death was outwitted by a stratagem: when the body died and death had seized it, the Savior, by sending forth the ray of power that had come upon him, destroyed death. And having cast off the mortal body, he raised up the passions. The psychic elements are thus raised and restored. The spiritual elements, having believed, are saved beyond those.

Having taken the souls as 'wedding garments.'" Now the psychic Christ sits on the right of the Demiurge, as David says, "Sit at my right hand," and so forth. And he sits until the consummation, "so that they may see the one whom they pierced." They pierced the visible, which was the flesh of the psychic. "For his bone will not be broken," it says, just as in the case of Adam the prophecy allegorized the soul as a bone. For the soul of Christ, when the body suffered, entrusted itself to the hands of the Father. But the spiritual element in the bone is no longer entrusted, but he himself preserves it. Now the rest of the spirituals is on the Lord's day, in the Ogdoad, which is called the Lord's day, with the Mother, having the souls, the garments, until the consummation. But the other faithful souls are with the Demiurge, and around the consummation they too withdraw into the Ogdoad. Then the wedding feast is common to all who are saved, until everything is equalized and recognizes each other. And from there, the spirituals, having laid aside the souls, together with the Mother who brings the bridegroom, themselves bring their own bridegrooms, the angels, and enter the bridal chamber within Horos, and come to the vision of the Father, becoming intellectual aeons, into the intellectual and eternal marriages of the syzygy. And the "master of the feast" of the dinner, and the "best man" of the wedding, "the friend of the bridegroom, standing before the bridal chamber, hearing the voice of the bridegroom, rejoices with joy." This is "the fullness of his joy" and rest.

The Saviour taught the apostles, first typologically and mystically, later parabolically and enigmatically, and thirdly clearly and nakedly in private. "When we were in the flesh," says the apostle, speaking as if already outside the body. He says that he calls that flesh the weakness, the projection from the woman above. And when the Saviour says to Salome that death exists until then, until women give birth, he was not disparaging generation, which is necessary for the salvation of the believers; for this generation must exist until the seed that was preordained is brought forth. But he is alluding to the female above, whose passions have become creation, which also projects the formless substances, on account of which the Lord came down, to draw us away from passion and to adopt us to himself. For as long as we were children of the female alone, as of a shameful union, we were imperfect, infantile, foolish, weak, and formless, like abortions brought forth, we were children of the woman; but having been formed by the Saviour, we have become children of the man and of the bridal chamber. Fate is a conjunction of many and opposing powers; these are invisible and imperceptible, governing the motion of the stars and administering through them. For according as each of them has arrived, borne along with the motion of the cosmos, it has obtained the dominion over those born at that very moment, as its own children. Through the fixed and wandering stars, therefore, the invisible powers mounted upon them manage and oversee the births.

The stars themselves do nothing, but they indicate the activity of the ruling powers, just as the flight of birds signifies something, not causes it. The twelve zodiacal signs and the seven planets that traverse them, sometimes accompanying, sometimes opposing, rising and setting * * . These, moved by the powers, manifest the motion of substance toward the generation of living beings and the change of circumstances. The stars and the powers are also different, beneficent and maleficent, right and left, whose common product is what is born; each thing comes to be through them at its proper time, the dominant power accomplishing what is according to nature, partly at the beginning, partly at the end. From this stance and battle of the powers the Lord delivers us and provides peace from the array of the powers and of the angels, some of whom are drawn up for us, others against us. For some resemble soldiers, fighting on our side as servants of God, others resemble bandits; for the wicked one did not gird himself with the sword received from the king, but seized it for himself out of audacity. Because of the opposing ones, who through the body and external things assault the soul and take it as a pledge into slavery, the right-hand powers are not sufficient, even by following along, to save and guard us. For they are not fully provident, like the good shepherd, but each is like a hired hand who sees the wolf approaching and flees, and is not eager to give up his life for his own sheep.

Furthermore, man, for whom the struggle exists, being a weak creature, is prone to the worse and is assisted by those who hate him; hence the evils that befall him are more numerous. For this reason the Lord came down to make peace from heaven for those on earth, as the apostle says: "Peace on earth and glory in the highest." For this reason a strange and new star arose, dissolving the old astral order, shining with a new light, not a cosmic one, taking new and salvific paths, just as the Lord himself, the guide of men, descended to earth in order to transfer those who believe in Christ from Fate to his own providence. That Fate exists for others, they say, the predictions of outcomes show, and the clear proof is also the study of the celestial bodies. For instance, the Magi not only saw the star of the Lord, but also recognized the truth, that a king was born, and of what kind of king, that he was pious; at that time only the Jews were renowned for piety. For this reason also the Savior, coming down to the pious, came first to those who at that time were held in esteem for piety. Just as the birth of the Savior cast us out of generation and Fate, so also his baptism delivered us from fire, and his passion from passion, so that in all things we might follow him. For he who is baptized into God has advanced into God and has received "authority to walk over scorpions and snakes," that is, over the evil powers. And he commands the apostles:

Go about and preach, and baptize those who believe in the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.” Into these we are reborn, becoming superior to all the remaining powers. Baptism is called death and end of the old life, as we renounce the evil powers, and life according to Christ, of which he alone is master. The power of the change in the baptized is not concerning the body (for the same person emerges), but concerning the soul. Immediately upon emerging from baptism, one is called a servant of God and lord of unclean spirits, and those in whom they were active a short time before, they now “tremble at.” Up to baptism, then, they say, Fate is true, but after this the astrologers no longer speak truth. But it is not only the bath that frees, but also knowledge: what we were, what we have become; where we were, [or] where we were cast; whither we hasten, whence we are redeemed; what birth is, what rebirth is. As long as the seed is still unformed, they say, it is a female child; but when formed, it is transformed into a man and becomes a son of the bridegroom, no longer weak and subject to cosmic things, both visible and invisible, but, having become manly, it becomes a male fruit. What the mother bears is led to death and into the world, but what Christ regenerates is transferred into life, into the Ogdoad; and they die to the world, but live to God, so that death is dissolved by death, and corruption by resurrection. For, sealed through Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one is unimpeachable by every other power, and through three names is freed from the entire triad in corruption.

Having put on the image of the earthly, then he puts on the image of the heavenly.” Of fire, the corporeal kind touches all bodies, but the pure and incorporeal kind they say touches incorporeal things, such as demons, angels of wickedness, and the devil himself. Thus the heavenly and the earthly fire is twofold in nature, the one intelligible, the other perceptible. Baptism also is twofold analogously: the perceptible through water, which extinguishes perceptible fire, and the intelligible through spirit, which wards off intelligible fire. And the corporeal spirit, being small, becomes food and fuel for perceptible fire, but when it becomes greater, it naturally extinguishes it; the spirit given to us from above, being incorporeal, prevails not only over elements but also over powers and evil principalities. Bread and oil are sanctified by the power of the name of God, being in appearance the same as when they were taken; but in power they are changed into spiritual power. So also water, both when exorcised and when it becomes baptism, not only separates the worse but also receives sanctification. It is fitting to come to baptism rejoicing, but since often unclean spirits descend along with some, which follow and, having received the seal together with the person, become incurable for the person from then on, fear is intertwined with joy, so that one may descend alone and pure.

For this reason there are fasts, prayers, supplications, liftings of hands, genuflections, because the soul is rescued from the world and "from the mouth of lions," and therefore there are immediately temptations, since those from whom it was taken are indignant, and even if one comes forewarned, at least external things are shaken. Immediately after his baptism the Lord is shaken for our sake and first becomes "with the wild beasts" in the desert, then, having mastered them and their ruler, as a true king, he is already served by angels. For he who has mastered angels while in flesh is reasonably served by angels. Therefore one must be armed with the Lord's weapons, keeping the body and soul unwounded, "with weapons able to quench the arrows of the devil," as the apostle says. Concerning the coin that was brought forward, the Lord said not whose property it was, but: "Whose image and inscription? Caesar's;" so that it might be given to him to whom it belongs. Thus also the faithful one: he has the name of God as an inscription through Christ, and the spirit as an image. Even irrational animals show by a seal whose each one is, and are claimed by the seal; thus also the faithful soul, having received the seal of truth, bears "the marks of Christ." These are "the children already resting together in the bed" and "the wise virgins," with whom the others, who are still to come, did not enter into "the prepared goods, into which angels desire to peep.