profoundest ignorance. For when they themselves bear testimony concerning their mother, to the effect that she was the offspring of an erring Æon, we need no longer search for a reason why the sons of such a mother should be ever swimming in the depths of ignorance. 9. I am not aware that, besides these productions [which have been mentioned], they are able to speak of any other; indeed, they have not been known to me (although I have had very frequent discussions with them concerning forms of this kind) as ever setting forth any other peculiar kind of being as produced [in the manner under consideration]. This only they maintain, that each one of these was so produced as to know merely that one who produced him, while he was ignorant of the one who immediately preceded. But they do not in this matter go forward [in their account] with any kind of demonstration as to the manner in which these were produced, or how such a thing could take place among spiritual beings. For, in whatsoever way they may choose to go forward, they will feel themselves bound (while, as regards the truth, they depart430 entirely from right reason) to proceed so far as to maintain that their Word, who springs from the Nous of the Propator, —to maintain, I say, that he was produced in a state of degeneracy. For [they hold] that perfect Nous, pre- viously begotten by the perfect Bythus, was not capable of rendering that production which issued from him perfect, but [could only bring it forth] utterly blind to the knowledge and greatness of the Father. They also maintain that the Saviour exhibited an emblem of this mystery in the case of that man who was blind from his birth,431 since the Æon was in this manner produced by Monogenes blind, that is, in ignorance, thus falsely ascribing ignorance and blindness to the Word of God, who, according to their own theory, holds the second [place of] production from the Propator. Admirable sophists, and explorers of the sublimities of the unknown Father, and rehearsers of those super-celestial mysteries “which the angels desire to look into!”432—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! 383 10. But, ye 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 Æon, when He was able also to produce along with him the knowledge of the Father? As ye affirm that Christ was generated433 after the rest, and yet declare that he was produced perfect, much more then should Logos, who is anterior to him in age, be produced by the same Nous, unquestionably perfect, and not blind; nor could he, again, 430 Some read “cæcutientes” instead of “circumeuntes,” as above. 431 John ix. 1, etc. 432 1 Pet. i. 12. 433 “Postgenitum quidem reliquis,” the representative, according to Grabe, of ἀπόγονον μὲν λοιποῖς in the Greek. Harvey remarks that τῶν λοιπῶν would have been better, and proposes to read “progenitum” in the Latin; but we do not see any necessity for change. 989 Chapter XVII.—Inquiry into the production of the Æons: whatever its supposed…