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| The Formation of Man by the Demiurge. Human Flesh Not Made of the Ground, But of a Nondescript Philosophic Substance. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XXIV.—The
Formation of Man by the Demiurge. Human Flesh Not Made of the Ground,
But of a Nondescript Philosophic Substance.
Such being their conceits respecting God, or, if
you like,6843 the gods, of what
sort are their figments concerning man? For, after he had made the
world, the Demiurge turns his hands to man, and chooses for him as his
substance not any portion of “the dry land,” as they say,
of which alone we have any knowledge (although it was, at that time,
not yet dried by the waters becoming separated from the earthy
residuum, and only afterwards became dry), but of the invisible
substance of that matter, which philosophy indeed dreams of, from its
fluid and fusible composition, the origin of which I am unable to
imagine, because it exists nowhere. Now, since fluidity and fusibility
are qualities of liquid matter, and since everything liquid flowed from
Sophia’s tears, we must, as a necessary conclusion, believe that
muddy earth is constituted of Sophia’s eye-rheums and viscid
discharges,6844
6844 Ex pituitis et
gramis. | which are just as
much the dregs of tears as mud is the sediment of waters. Thus does the
Demiurge mould man as a potter does his clay, and animates him with his
own breath. Made after his image and likeness, he will therefore be
both material and animal. A fourfold being! For in respect of his
“image,” he must be deemed clayey,6845
that is to say, material, although the Demiurge is not composed of
matter; but as to his “likeness,” he is animal, for such,
too, is the Demiurge. You have two (of his constituent elements).
Moreover, a coating of flesh was, as they allege, afterwards placed
over the clayey substratum, and it is this tunic of skin which is
susceptible of sensation.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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