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| The Peratæ.
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Chapter VI.—The
Peratæ.
The Peratæ, however, viz., Ademes the
Carystian, and Euphrates the Peratic, say that there is some one
world,—this is the denomination they use,—and affirming
that it is divided into three parts. But of the threefold
division, according to them, there is one principle, just like an
immense fountain, capable of being by reason divided into infinite
segments. And the first segment, and the one of more proximity,
according to them, is the triad, and is called a perfect good,
and a paternal magnitude. But the second portion of the
triad is a certain multitude of, as it were, infinite powers. The
third part, however, is formal. And the first is
unbegotten;1044
| 1044
Cruice supplies from Theodoret: “and the second
which is good is self-begotten, and the third is
generated.” | whence they
expressly affirm that there are three Gods, three Logoi, three minds,
(and) three men. For when the division has been accomplished, to
each part of the world they assign both Gods, and Logoi, and men, and
the rest. But from above, from uncreatedness and the first
segment of the world, when afterwards the world had attained to its
consummation, the Peratic affirms that there came down, in the
times of Herod, a certain man with a threefold nature, and a threefold
body, and a threefold power, named Christ, and that He possesses from
the three parts of the world in Himself all the concretions and
capacities of the world. And they are disposed to think
that this is what has been declared, “in whom dwelleth all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily.”1045
And they assert that from the
two worlds situated above—namely, both the unbegotten
one and self-begotten one—there were borne down
into this world in which we are, germs of all sorts of powers.
And (they say) that Christ came down from above from uncreatedness, in
order that, by His descent, all things that have been divided into
three parts may be saved. For, says the Peratic, the
things that have been borne down from above will ascend through Him;
and the things that have plotted against those that have been borne
down are heedlessly rejected,1046
| 1046
ἀφίεται
εἰκῇ: Bernays proposes ὀφιοειδῆ, i.e., being of the form of the serpent. |
and sent away to be punished. And the Peratic states that
there are two parts which are saved—that is, those that
are situated above—by having been separated from corruption, and
that the third is destroyed, which he calls a formal world. These
also are the tenets of the Peratæ.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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