: The Bobbin Boy; or How Nat Got His learning by Thayer William Makepeace - Banks Nathaniel Prentiss 1816-1894; Self-culture Juvenile literature; Political oratory Juvenile literature; Statesmen United States Biography Juvenile literature; Temperance Juvenil

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PAGE BOOK VI: SIMON MAGUS, VALENTINUS, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS 1-57 1. SIMON 2 2. VALENTINUS 17 3. SECUNDUS AND EPIPHANES 38 4. PTOLEMY 39 5. MARCUS 40

BOOK X: SUMMARIES, AND THE WORD OF TRUTH 149-178 1. THE SUMMARY OF THE PHILOSOPHERS 150 2. THE SUMMARY OF THE HERESIES 153 3. THE WORD OF TRUTH 171

INDEX 179

PHILOSOPHUMENA

BOOK VI

SIMON MAGUS, VALENTINUS, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS

And the manifest of the fire contains within itself all which one can perceive or which can escape one, but remains visible; but the hidden contains everything which one can perceive as something intelligible but which evades the sense or which as not being thoroughly understood one passes over. But it must be said generally that of all things which are perceptible and intelligible, which Simon calls hidden and manifest, the supercelestial fire is the Treasure-house, like unto the great tree which was seen by Nebuchadnezzar in a dream, from which all flesh is fed. And he considers the trunk, the boughs, the leaves, and the bark on the outside of it to be the manifest part of the fire. All these things which are attached to the great tree the flame of the all-devouring fire causes to vanish. But the fruit of the tree, if it be made a perfect likeness and has received its own shape, is placed in a storehouse and not in the fire. For the fruit, he says, has been produced that it may be put in a storehouse, but the chaff that it may be cast into the fire, which is the trunk which has not been produced for its own sake, but for that of the fruit.

For earth by earth we see, and water by water And aether by aether, yet destroying fire by fire, And by love, and strife in gloomy strife.--

How then and in what manner, he says, did God form man in Paradise? For this is his opinion. Let, he says, Paradise be the womb, and that this is true the Scripture teaches when it says: "I am he who fashioned thee in thy mother's womb." For this also he wishes to be thus written. Moses, he says, speaking in allegory, calls Paradise the womb if we are to believe the word. But if God fashions man in the womb of his mother, that is, in Paradise, as I have said, let Paradise be the womb and Edem the placenta: "And a river went forth from Edem and watered Paradise" the navel-string. The navel-string, he says, separates into four heads. For on each side of the navel are set two arteries, conduits of breath, and two veins, conduits of blood. But when he says, the navel-string goes forth from the placenta it takes root in the infant by the epigastrium which all men commonly call the navel. And the two veins it is through which flows and is borne from Edem the blood to the so-called gates of the liver whence the child is fed. But the arteries as we have said, are the conduits of the breath which pass behind on either side of the bladder round the pelvis and make connection with the great artery by the spine called the aorta, and thus through the ventricles the breath flows upon the heart and causes movement of the embryo. For the embryo in course of formation in Paradise neither takes food by the mouth, nor breathes through the nostrils. For, as it exists amid waters, death is at its feet if it should breathe. For it would then draw in the waters and die. But it is girt about almost wholly by the envelope called the amnion and is fed through the navel, and through the aorta which is by the spine, it receives, as I have said the substance of the breath.

Black was it at the root, but the flower was like milk The gods call it Moly, but hard it is to dig For mortal men, but to the gods all things are possible.--

And that, he says, the beginning of the generation of things begotten is from fire, he understands in some such fashion as this: In all things whatever which have birth, the beginning of the desire of generation comes from fire. As, for instance, the desire for mutable generation is called "being inflamed" . But the fire from being one, turns into two. For in the man, he says, the blood which is hot and yellow as fire is depicted, turns into seed; but in the woman the selfsame blood into milk. And from the turning in the male comes generation and from that in the female the nourishment of that which is generated. This, he says, is the flaming sword turning about to guard the path to the Tree of Life. For the blood is turned to seed and milk and the same power becomes father and mother of those which are born and the increase of those which are nourished, itself lacking nothing and being sufficient unto itself. But the Tree of Life is guarded he says, through the turning of the flaming sword, as we have said, which is the Seventh Power which is from itself, which contains all things which lies stored up in the six powers. For if the flaming sword did not turn about, that fair tree would perish and be destroyed. But if the Logos which is lying stored up potentially therein, is turned into seed and milk, being lord of its proper place wherein is begotten a Logos of souls,--then from the smallest spark it will become great and increase in every sense and will be a boundless power unchangeable in the aeon which changes not until it is in the Boundless Aeon.

"Unto you I say what I say, and I write what I write. The writing is this. There are two stems of all the Aeons, having neither beginning nor end, from one root, which is Power-Silence unseen and incomprehensible. One of them appears on high, who is a great power, the mind of the universals, who orders all things and a male. And the other below is a great Thought, a female giving birth to all things. These, then, being set over against each other form a pair and show forth the middle space, an incomprehensible air having neither beginning nor end. In this is a Father who upholds all things and nourishes those which have a beginning and end. This is He who Stood, Stands, and will Stand, being a masculo-feminine power after the likeness of the pre-existing Boundless Power which has neither beginning nor end but exists in oneness. For the thought which came forth from the in oneness was two. And that was one. For he when he contained her within himself was alone, nor was he indeed first although he existed beforehand, but having himself appeared from himself, a second came into being. But he was not called Father until she named him Father. Just as then he, drawing himself forth from himself, manifested to himself his own thought, so also the thought having appeared did not create him; but beholding him, hid the Father--that is Power--within herself; and there is a masculo-feminine Power-and-Thought when they are set over against each other. For Power does not differ at all from thought, they being one. From the things on high is discovered Power; from those below Thought. Thus then it is that that which appeared from them being one is found to be two, a masculo-feminine having the female within it. This is Mind in Thought for they being one when undivided from one another are yet found to be two."

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