all things have been made, just as a statue is of its metal and its special form. Now, the
heretics have adapted this to the things which are outside of the Pleroma. The [Pythagoreans]
maintained that the411 principle of intellect is proportionate to the energy wherewith mind,
as a recipient of the comprehensible, pursues its inquiries, until, worn out, it is resolved at
length in the Indivisible and One. They further affirm that Hen—that is, One—is the first
principle of all things, and the substance of all that has been formed. From this again pro-
ceeded the Dyad, the Tetrad, the Pentad, and the manifold generation of the others. These
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things the heretics repeat, word for word, with a reference to their Pleroma and Bythus.
From the same source, too, they strive to bring into vogue those conjunctions which proceed
from unity. Marcus boasts of such views as if they were his own, and as if he were seen to
have discovered something more novel than others, while he simply sets forth the Tetrad
of Pythagoras as the originating principle and mother of all things.
7. But I will merely say, in opposition to these men —Did all those who have been
mentioned, with whom you have been proved to coincide in expression, know, or not know,
the truth? If they knew it, then the descent of the Saviour into this world was superfluous.
For why [in that case] did He descend? Was it that He might bring that truth which was
[already] known to the knowledge of those who knew it? If, on the other hand, these men
did not know it, then how is it that, while you express yourselves in the same terms as do
those who knew not the truth, ye boast that yourselves alone possess that knowledge which
is above all things, although they who are ignorant of God [likewise] possess it? Thus, then,
by a complete perversion412 of language, they style ignorance of the truth knowledge: and
Paul well says [of them,] that [they make use of] “novelties of words of false knowledge.”413
For that knowledge of theirs is truly found to be false. If, however, taking an impudent
course with respect to these points, they declare that men indeed did not know the truth,
but that their Mother,414 the seed of the Father, proclaimed the mysteries of truth through
such men, even as also through the prophets, while the Demiurge was ignorant [of the
proceeding], then I answer, in the first place, that the things which were predicted were not
of such a nature as to be intelligible to no one; for the men themselves knew what they were
saying, as did also their disciples, and those again succeeded these. And, in the next place,
if either the Mother or her seed knew and proclaimed those things which were of the truth
(and the Father415 is truth), then on their theory the Saviour spoke falsely when He said,
411 All the editors confess the above sentence hopelessly obscure. We have given Harvey’s conjectural
translation.
412 Literally, “antiphrasis.”
413 1 Tim. vi. 20. The text is, “Vocum novitates falsæ agnitionis,” καινοφωνίας having apparently been read
in the Greek instead of κενοφωνίας as in Text. Rec.
414 Grabe and others insert “vel” between these words.
415 It seems necessary to regard these words as parenthetical, though the point is overlooked by all the editors.
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Chapter XIV.—Valentinus and his followers derived the principles of their…