not come into being or exist apart by itself. This opinion [of theirs], however, is not only untenable, but also opposed to that which was spoken by our Lord: "Seek, and ye shall find."[1] For the Lord renders His disciples perfect by their seeking after and finding the Father; but that Christ of theirs, who is above, has rendered them perfect, by the fact that He has commanded the Æons not to seek after the Father, persuading them that, though they should labour hard, they would not find Him. And they[2] declare that they themselves are perfect, by the fact that they maintain they have found their By thus; while the Æons [have been made perfect] through means of this, that He is unsearchable who was inquired after by them.
4. Since, therefore, the Enthymesis herself could not exist separately, apart from the Æon, [it is obvious that] they bring forward still greater falsehood concerning her passion, when they further proceed to divide and separate it from her, while they declare that it was the substance of matter. As if God were not light, and as if no Word existed who could convict them, and overthrow their wickedness. For it is certainly true, that whatsoever the Æon thought, that she also suffered; and what she suffered, that she also thought. And her Enthymesis was, according to them, nothing else than the passion of one thinking how she might comprehend the incomprehensible. And thus Enthymesis (thought) was the passion; for she was thinking of things impossible. How then could affection and passion be separated and set apart from the Enthymesis, so as to become the substance of so vast a material creation, when Enthymesis herself was the passion, and the passion Enthymesis? Neither, therefore, can Enthymesis apart from the Æon, nor the affections apart from Enthymesis, separately possess substance; and thus once more their system breaks down and is destroyed.
5. But how did it come to pass that the Æon was both dissolved [into her component parts], and became subject to
