Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Compendious Statement of the Doctrines of the Peratæ.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
XII.—Compendious Statement of the Doctrines of the
Peratæ.
This is the diversified wisdom of the Peratic heresy,
which it is difficult to declare in its entirety, so intricate is it on
account of its seeming to consist of the astrological art. As far
forth, then, as this is possible, we shall briefly explain the whole
force of this (heresy). In order, however, that we may by a
compendious statement elucidate the entire doctrine of these persons,
it appears expedient to subjoin the following observations.
According to them, the universe is Father, Son, (and) Matter; (but)
each of these three has endless capacities in itself.
Intermediate, then, between the Matter and the Father sits the Son, the
Word, the Serpent, always being in motion towards the unmoved Father,
and (towards) Matter itself in motion. And at one time he is
turned towards the Father, and receives the powers into his own person;
but at another time takes up these powers, and is turned towards
Matter. And Matter, (though) devoid of attribute, and being
unfashioned, moulds (into itself) forms from the Son which the Son
moulded from the Father.
But the Son derives shape from the Father after a
mode ineffable, and unspeakable, and unchangeable; (that is,) in such a
manner as Moses says that the colours of the conceived (kine) flowed
from the rods503
which were fixed in
the drinking-troughs. And in like manner, again, that capacities
flowed also from the Son into Matter, similarly to the power in
reference to conception which came from the rods upon the conceived
(kine). And the difference of colours, and the dissimilarity which
flowed from the rods through the waters upon the sheep, is, he says,
the difference of corruptible and incorruptible generation. As,
however, one who paints from nature, though he takes nothing away from
animals, transfers by his pencil all forms to the canvas; so the Son,
by a power which belongs to himself, transfers paternal marks from the
Father into Matter. All the paternal marks are here, and there
are not any more. For if any one, he says, of those (beings)
which are here will have strength to perceive that he is a paternal
mark transferred hither from above, (and that he is)
incarnate—just as by the conception resulting from the rod a
something white is produced,—he is of the same substance
altogether with the Father in heaven, and returns thither. If,
however, he may not happen upon this doctrine, neither will he
understand the necessity of generation, just as an abortion born at
night will perish at night. When, therefore, he says, the Saviour
observes, “your Father which is in heaven,”504
he alludes to that one from whom the Son
deriving his characteristics has transferred them hither. When,
however, (Jesus) remarks, “Your father is a murderer from the
beginning,”505
he alludes to the
Ruler and Demiurge of matter, who, appropriating the marks delivered
from the Son, generated him here who from the beginning was a murderer,
for his work causes corruption and death.
No one, then, he says, can be saved or return
(into heaven) without the Son, and the Son is the Serpent. For as
he brought down from above the paternal marks, so again he carries up
from thence those marks roused from a dormant condition and rendered
paternal characteristics, substantial ones from the unsubstantial
Being, transferring them hither from thence. This, he says, is
what is spoken: “I am the door.”506
And he transfers (those marks), he
says,507
| 507 There is a
hiatus here. Miller, who also suggests διαφέρει instead
of μεταφέρει
supplies the deficiency as translated above. The Abbe Cruice
fills up the hiatus by words taken from a somewhat similar passage in
the third chapter of book viii., but the obscurity still remains.
Miller thinks there is a reference to Isa. vi. 10. | to those who close
the eyelid, as the naphtha drawing the fire in every direction towards
itself; nay rather, as the magnet (attracting) the iron and not
anything else, or just as the backbone of the sea falcon, the gold and
nothing else, or as the chaff is led by the amber. In this
manner, he says, is the portrayed, perfect, and consubstantial genus
drawn again from the world by the Serpent; nor does he (attract)
anything else, as it has been sent down by him. For a proof of
this, they adduce the anatomy508
| 508 This
theory has been previously alluded to by Hippolytus in the last chapter
of book iv. | of
the brain, assimilating, from the fact of its immobility, the brain
itself to the Father, and the cerebellum to the Son, because of its
being moved and being of the form of (the head of) a serpent. And
they allege that this (cerebellum), by an ineffable and inscrutable
process, attracts through the pineal gland the spiritual and
life-giving substance emanating from the vaulted chamber509
| 509 καμαρίου:
some would read μακαρίου
[“the dome of thought, the palace of the soul”]. | (in which the brain is embedded). And
on receiving this, the cerebellum in an ineffable manner imparts the
ideas, just as the Son does, to matter; or, in other words, the seeds
and the genera of the things produced according to the flesh flow along
into the spinal marrow. Employing this exemplar, (the heretics)
seem to adroitly introduce their secret mysteries, which are delivered
in silence. Now it would be impious for us to declare these; yet
it is easy to form an idea of them, by reason of the many statements
that have been made.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
