man existed prior to the Word, and that this is really He who is God over all. And thus it is, as I have previously remarked, that heaping together with a kind of plausibility all human feelings, and mental exercises, and formation of intentions, and utterances of words, they have lied with no plausibility at all against God. For while they ascribe the things which happen to men, and whatsoever they recognise themselves as experiencing, to the divine reason, they seem to those who are imiorant of God to make statements suitable enough. And by these human passions, drawing away their intelligence, while they describe the origin and production of the Word of God in the fifth place, they assert that thus they teach wonderful mysteries, unspeakable and sublime, known to no one but themselves. It was, [they affirm,] concerning these that the Lord said, "Seek, and ye shall find,"[1] that is, that they should inquire how Nous and Aletheia proceeded from Bythus and Sige; whether Logos and Zoe again derive their origin from these; and then, whether Anthropos and Ecclesia proceed from Logos and Zoe.
Chap. xiv.—Valentinus and his followers derived the principles of their system from the heathen; the names only are changed.
1. Much liker the truth, and more pleasing, is the account which Antiphanes,[2] one of the ancient comic poets, gives in his Theogony as to the origin of all things. For he speaks of Chaos as being produced from Night and Silence; relates that then Love[3] sprang from Chaos and Night; from this again, Light; and that from this, in his opinion, were derived
- ↑ Matt. vii. 7.
- ↑ Nothing is known of this writer. Several of the same name are mentioned by the ancients, but to none of them is a work named Theogonia ascribed. He is supposed to be the same poet as is cited by Athenæus, but that writer quotes from a work styled Ἀφροδίτης γοναὶ.
- ↑ The Latin is" Cupidinem;" and Harvey here refers to Aristotle, who "quotes the authority of Hesiod and Parmenides as saying that Love is the eternal intellect, reducing Chaos into order."
