Torches Lit from One Torch

Their account of the Pleroma, then — and above all the part of it that has to do with the first Ogdoad — is loaded down with contradictions and tangles like these. So let me now go on and examine the rest of their scheme. Because of their madness I will be inquiring into things that have no real existence at all. Still, it has to be done. The handling of this subject has been put into my hands; I want everyone to come to the knowledge of the truth; and you yourself asked me for a full and complete supply of material for overturning these men. [a]

So I ask: in what manner were the rest of the Aeons produced? Were they produced so as to stay united with the one who produced them, the way the sun’s rays are united with the sun? Or were they produced by an act, and separately, so that each one had an existence of its own and its own particular form — the way one man comes from another man, and one herd of cattle from another herd? Or was it after the manner of budding, the way branches come from a tree? And were they of the same substance as the ones who produced them, or did they get their substance from some other kind of substance? Again, were they produced all at the same time, so that they are of one age, or in a certain order, so that some are older and some younger? And are they simple and uniform, altogether equal and alike among themselves, the way spirit and light are produced — or are they compounded and different, unlike one another in their parts?

If each of them was produced after the manner of men, by an act and by a generation of its own, then either the ones generated by the Father are of the same substance as he is and like their author, or, if they turn out unlike him, it has to be admitted that they are made of some different substance. Now if the beings generated by the Father are like their author, then those who were produced must remain forever incapable of suffering, just as the one who produced them is. But if they are of a different substance, one that is capable of suffering, then where did this unlike substance come from, to find a place inside the incorruptible Pleroma?

On this principle, too, each one of them has to be understood as completely cut off from every other, the way men are not mixed together or joined to one another, but each has a distinct shape of his own and a definite sphere of action — and each is made to a particular size as well. Those are the marks of a body, not of a spirit. So let them stop calling the Pleroma spiritual, and stop calling themselves “spiritual,” if their Aeons really do sit feasting with the Father as though they were men, and he himself is of the sort of build that those produced by him report him to have.

If, on the other hand, the Aeons came from Logos, and Logos from Nous, and Nous from Bythus, the way lights are kindled from a light — torches, say, from a torch — then they may indeed differ from one another in the order of their generation and in size. But since they are of the same substance as the author of their production, either they must all remain forever incapable of suffering, or their Father himself must share in suffering. For a torch lit later cannot have a different kind of light from the one that was lit before it. That is why their lights, when they are blended into one, go back to the original single thing: the one light is then formed that has existed from the very beginning. But of light itself we cannot say that one part of it is more recent in origin and another more ancient, since the whole is a single light. Nor can we say it even of the torches that have received the light, since as far as their material substance goes they are all of one age — the substance of torches is one and the same. We can say it only of the time of their being kindled: one was lit a little while ago, and another has just now been lit.

So the defect of that suffering which has to do with ignorance will either attach to their whole Pleroma alike, since all its members are of the same substance — and then the Propator will share in this defect of ignorance, that is, he will be ignorant of himself — or else all the lights inside the Pleroma will alike remain forever incapable of suffering. Where, then, does the suffering of the youngest Aeon come from, if the Father’s light is the light out of which all the other lights were formed, and if it is by nature incapable of suffering? And how can one Aeon be called younger or older than the rest, when there is only one light in the entire Pleroma? And if anyone calls them stars, they will still all turn out to share the same nature. For if “one star differs from another star in glory,” they do not differ in qualities, or in substance, or in whether they can suffer or not. So all of them, since they all alike come from the Father’s light, must either be by nature incapable of suffering and unchangeable, or else they must all, along with the Father’s light, be capable of suffering and open to the shifting phases of corruption.

The same conclusion follows even if they say that the production of the Aeons sprang out of Logos the way branches spring from a tree, since Logos has his generation from their Father. For all the Aeons are formed of the same substance as the Father, differing from one another only in size and not in nature, and filling out the Father’s greatness the way the fingers complete the hand. So if he exists in suffering and ignorance, the Aeons generated by him must be in the same state. But if it is an outrage against God to ascribe ignorance and suffering to the Father of all, how can they describe an Aeon produced by him as capable of suffering? And while they fasten that same outrage on the very Wisdom — Sophia — of God, how can they still call themselves religious men?

If again they declare that their Aeons were sent out the way rays are sent out from the sun, then, since they are all of the same substance and sprang from the same source, either they must all be capable of suffering along with the one who produced them, or they must all remain incapable of suffering forever. They can no longer maintain that of beings produced in that way some can suffer and some cannot. If, then, they declare that all are incapable of suffering, they destroy their own argument — for how could the youngest Aeon have suffered if none of them could suffer? But if they declare that all of them shared in this suffering, as some of them do in fact venture to say, then, since it began with Logos and flowed on down to Sophia, they will stand convicted of tracing the suffering back to Logos, who is the Nous of this Propator, and so of admitting that the Nous of the Propator, and the Father himself, went through suffering.

For the Father of all is not to be regarded as a kind of compound being who can be separated from his Nous, his mind, as I have already shown. Nous is the Father, and the Father is Nous. So it necessarily follows both that the one who springs from him as Logos — or rather that Nous himself, since he is Logos — must be perfect and incapable of suffering, and also that the productions which proceed from him, being of the same substance as he is, must be perfect and incapable of suffering, and must always remain like the one who produced them.

So it can no longer be held, as these men teach, that Logos, occupying the third place in generation, was ignorant of the Father. Something like that might perhaps look probable in the case of the generation of human beings, since they often know nothing about their parents; but it is altogether impossible in the case of the Logos of the Father. For if, existing in the Father, he knows the one in whom he exists — that is, if he is not ignorant of himself — then the productions that issue from him, being his own powers and always present with him, will not be ignorant of the one who sent them out, any more than the rays could be ignorant of the sun. It is impossible, then, that the Sophia of God, the one who is inside the Pleroma, having been produced in such a manner, should have fallen under the power of suffering and conceived such ignorance. But it is quite possible that the Sophia who belongs to Valentinus’s scheme, being a product of the devil, should fall into every kind of suffering and show the profoundest ignorance. For when they themselves testify about their mother that she was the offspring of an Aeon who went wrong, we need look no further for a reason why the sons of such a mother should be forever swimming in the depths of ignorance.

As far as I am aware, they cannot speak of any productions besides the ones mentioned. Certainly I have never known them — and I have had very frequent discussions with them about matters of this kind — to set out any other particular way in which a being might be produced. All they maintain is that each of these was produced in such a way as to know only the one who produced him, while being ignorant of the one immediately before him. But on this point they do not go forward with any kind of demonstration of how these beings were produced, or how such a thing could happen among spiritual beings.

For whichever way they choose to go forward, they will find themselves bound — while, as regards the truth, they wander clean away from right reason — to go so far as to maintain that their Word, who springs from the Nous of the Propator, was produced in a state of degeneracy. For they hold that the perfect Nous, already begotten by the perfect Bythus, was not capable of making the production that issued from him perfect, but could only bring it forth utterly blind to the knowledge and the greatness of the Father. They also maintain that the Savior displayed a symbol of this mystery in the case of the man who was blind from birth, the Aeon having been produced in just this way by Monogenes — blind, that is, in ignorance. So they falsely ascribe ignorance and blindness to the Word of God, who on their own theory holds the second place of production from the Propator. Admirable sophists! Explorers of the heights of the unknown Father! Rehearsers of those more-than-heavenly mysteries “which the angels long to look into” — so that they may learn that from the Nous of that Father who is above all, the Word was produced blind, that is, ignorant of the Father who produced him!

But you miserable sophists — how could the Nous of the Father, or rather the very Father himself, since he is Nous and perfect in all things, have produced his own Logos as an imperfect and blind Aeon, when he was able to produce the knowledge of the Father along with him? You affirm that Christ was generated after the rest, and yet you declare that he was produced perfect. Then how much more should Logos, who is older than he is, have been produced by the same Nous unquestionably perfect and not blind. Nor could Logos in turn have produced Aeons still blinder than himself, until at last your Sophia, blinded through and through, gave birth to so vast a mass of evils.

And your Father is the cause of all this mischief. For you declare that the greatness and power of your Father are the causes of ignorance, likening him to Bythus and assigning that as a name to the Father who cannot be named. But if ignorance is an evil, and you declare that all evils drew their strength from it, while you also maintain that the greatness and power of the Father are the cause of that ignorance, then you are setting him forth as the author of all evils. For you state as the cause of evil this fact: that no one could take in his greatness. Now if it really was impossible for the Father to make himself known from the beginning to the beings that were formed by him, then he must be held free of blame, since he could not remove the ignorance of those who came after him. But if at a later time, when he willed it, he could take away the ignorance that had grown with the successive productions as they followed one another, and had settled deep in the Aeons, then much more, had he willed it, could he have kept that ignorance from ever coming into existence, back when it did not yet exist.

So then: as soon as it pleased him, he did become known, not only to the Aeons but also to these men who have lived in these latter times. But since it did not please him to be known from the beginning, he remained unknown — and so, on your account, the cause of ignorance is the will of the Father. For if he foreknew that these things were going to happen in this way, why did he not guard against the ignorance of these beings before it took hold among them, rather than deal with it afterward, as though moved by regret, through the production of Christ? The knowledge he conveyed to all through Christ he might long before have imparted through Logos, who was also the first-begotten of Monogenes. Or, if he knew them beforehand and willed that these things should happen as they have, then the works of ignorance must last forever and never pass away. For the things that have been made in accordance with your Propator’s will must continue along with the will of the one who willed them; and if they do pass away, then the will of the one who decreed that they should exist will pass away along with them.

And why did the Aeons find rest and reach perfect knowledge by learning at last that the Father is altogether beyond containing and beyond grasping? They might surely have had that knowledge before they became involved in suffering. The Father’s greatness suffered no diminishing from the beginning, such that they could have known then that he was altogether beyond containing. For if he remained unknown on account of his infinite greatness, he ought also, on account of his infinite love, to have preserved those he produced free from suffering. Nothing stood in the way; and it would in fact have been the better course, that they should have known from the beginning that the Father is altogether beyond containing and beyond grasping.