of Sige. For these are mutually destructive of each other, even as light and darkness can by
no possibility exist in the same place: for if light prevails, there cannot be darkness; and if
darkness, there cannot be light, since, where light appears, darkness is put to flight. In like
manner, where Sige is, there cannot be Logos; and where Logos is, there certainly cannot
be Sige. But if they say that Logos simply exists within391 (unexpressed), Sige also will exist
within, and will not the less be destroyed by the Logos within. But that he really is not merely
conceived of in the mind, the very order of the production of their (Æons) shows.
6. Let them not then declare that the first and principal Ogdoad consists of Logos and
Sige, but let them [as a matter of necessity] exclude either Sige or Logos; and then their first
and principal Ogdoad is at an end. For if they describe the conjunctions [of the Æons] as
united, then their whole argument fails to pieces. Since, if they were united, how could
Sophia have generated a defect without union with her consort? If, on the other hand, they
maintain that, as in production, each of the Æons possesses his own peculiar substance,
then how can Sige and Logos manifest themselves in the same place? So far, then, with respect
to defect.
7. But again, their Triacontad is overthrown as to excess by the following considerations.
They represent Horos (whom they call by a variety of names which I have mentioned in the
preceding book) as having been produced by Monogenes just like the other Æons. Some of
them maintain that this Horos was produced by Monogenes, while others affirm that he
was sent forth by the Propator himself in His own image. They affirm further, that a produc-
tion was formed by Monogenes— Christ and the Holy Spirit; and they do not reckon these
in the number of the Pleroma, nor the Saviour either, whom they also declare to be Totum392
(all things). Now, it is evident even to a blind man, that not merely thirty productions, as
they maintain, were sent forth, but four more along with these thirty. For they reckon the
Propator himself in the Pleroma, and those too, who in succession were produced by one
another. Why is it, then, that those [other beings] are not reckoned as existing with these
in the same Pleroma, since they were produced in the same manner? For what just reason
can they assign for not reckoning along with the other Æons, either Christ, whom they de-
scribe as having, according to the Father’s will, been produced by Monogenes, or the Holy
Spirit, or Horos, whom they also call Soter393 (Saviour), and not even the Saviour Himself,
who came to impart assistance and form to their Mother? Whether is this as if these latter
391 ἐνδιάθετος —simply conceived in the mind—used in opposition to προφορικός, expressed.
392 Harvey remarks that “the author perhaps wrote Ορον (Horos), which was read by the translator ῞Ολον
(totum).”
393 Since Soter does not occur among the various appellations of Horos mentioned by Irenæus (i. 11, 4),
Grabe proposes to read Stauros, and Massuet Lytrotes; but Harvey conceives that the difficulty is explained by
the fact that Horos was a power of Soter (i. 3, 3).
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Chapter XII.—The Triacontad of the heretics errs both by defect and excess:…