come to His own things, but to those of another. And, according to certain of the Gnostics,
this world was made by angels, and not by the Word of God. But according to the followers
of Valentinus, the world was not made by Him, but by the Demiurge. For he (Soter) caused
such similitudes to be made, after the pattern of things above, as they allege; but the Demiurge
accomplished the work of creation. For they say that he, the Lord and Creator of the plan
of creation, by whom they hold that this world was made, was produced from the Mother;
while the Gospel affirms plainly, that by the Word, which was in the beginning with God,
all things were made, which Word, he says, “was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”785
3. But, according to these men, neither was the Word made flesh, nor Christ, nor the
427
Saviour (Soter), who was produced from [the joint contributions of] all [the Æons]. For
they will have it, that the Word and Christ never came into this world; that the Saviour, too,
never became incarnate, nor suffered, but that He descended like a dove upon the dispens-
ational Jesus; and that, as soon as He had declared the unknown Father, He did again ascend
into the Pleroma. Some, however, make the assertion, that this dispensational Jesus did be-
come incarnate, and suffered, whom they represent as having passed through Mary just as
water through a tube; but others allege him to be the Son of the Demiurge, upon whom the
dispensational Jesus descended; while others, again, say that Jesus was born from Joseph
and Mary, and that the Christ from above descended upon him, being without flesh, and
impassible. But according to the opinion of no one of the heretics was the Word of God
made flesh. For if anyone carefully examines the systems of them all, he will find that the
Word of God is brought in by all of them as not having become incarnate (sine carne) and
impassible, as is also the Christ from above. Others consider Him to have been manifested
as a transfigured man; but they maintain Him to have been neither born nor to have become
incarnate; whilst others [hold] that He did not assume a human form at all, but that, as a
dove, He did descend upon that Jesus who was born from Mary. Therefore the Lord’s disciple,
pointing them all out as false witnesses, says, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us.”786
4. And that we may not have to ask, Of what God was the Word made flesh? he does
himself previously teach us, saying, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was
John. The same came as a witness, that he might bear witness of that Light. He was not that
Light, but [came] that he might testify of the Light.”787 By what God, then, was John, the
forerunner, who testifies of the Light, sent [into the world]? Truly it was by Him, of whom
Gabriel is the angel, who also announced the glad tidings of his birth: [that God] who also
had promised by the prophets that He would send His messenger before the face of His
785 John i. 14.
786 John i. 14.
787 John i. 6.
1086
Chapter XI—Proofs in continuation, extracted from St. John’s Gospel. The…