2. Peratæ

12. There is also indeed a certain other (heresy), the Peratic, the blasphemy of whose (followers) against Christ has for many years evaded (us). Whose secret mysteries it now seems fitting for us to bring into the open. They suppose the cosmos to be one, divided into three parts. But of this triple division, one part according to them is, as it were, a single principle like a great source which may be cut by the mind into boundless sections. And the first and chiefest section according to them is the triad and (the one part of it) is called Perfect Good and Fatherly Greatness. But the second part of this triad of theirs is, as it were, a certain boundless multitude of powers which have come into being from themselves, while the third is (the world of) form. And the first is unbegotten and is good; and the second is good (and) self-begotten, while the third is begotten. Whence they say expressly that there are three Gods, three logoi, three minds, and three men. For they assign to each part of the world of the divided divisibility, gods and logoi and minds and men and the rest. But they say that from on high, from the unbegottenness and the first section of the cosmos, when the cosmos had already been brought to completion, there came down through causes which we shall declare later in the days of Herod a certain triple-bodied and triple-powered man called Christ, containing within Himself all the compounds and powers from the three parts of the cosmos. And this, he says is the saying: “The whole Pleroma was pleased to dwell within Him bodily and the whole godhead” of the Triad thus divided “is in Him.” For, he says that there were brought down from the two overlying worlds, (to wit) the unbegotten and the self-begotten, unto this world in which we are, seeds of all powers. But what is the manner of their descent we shall see later. Then he says that Christ was brought down from on high from the unbegottenness so that through His descent all the threefold divisions should be saved. For the things, he says, brought down below shall ascend through Him; but those which take counsel together against those brought down from above shall be banished and after they have been punished shall be rooted out. This, he says, is the saying: “The Son of Man came not into the world to destroy the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” He calls “the world,” he says, the two overlying portions, (to wit) the unbegotten and the self-begotten. When the Scripture says: “Lest ye be judged with the world,” he says, it means the third part of the cosmos (to wit) that of form. For the third part which he calls the world must be destroyed, but the two overlying ones preserved from destruction.

13. Let us first learn, then, how they who have taken this teaching from the astrologers insult Christ, working destruction for those who follow them in such error. For the astrologers, having declared the cosmos to be one, divided it into the twelve fixed parts of the Zodiacal signs, and call the cosmos of the fixed Zodiacal signs one unwandering world. But the other, they say, is the world of the planets alike in power and in position and in number which exists as far as the Moon. And that one world receives from the other a certain power and communion, and that things below partake of things above. But so that what is said shall be made plain, I will use in part the very words of the astrologers, recalling to the readers what was said before in the place where we set forth the whole art of astrology. Their doctrines then are these: From the emanation of the stars the genitures of things below are influenced. For the Chaldæans, scrutinizing the heavens with great care, said that (the seven stars) account for the active causes of everything which happens to us; but that the degrees of the Zodiacal circle work with them. (Then they divide the Zodiacal circle into) 12 parts, and each Zodiacal sign into 30 degrees and each degree into 60 minutes; for these they call the least and the undivided. And they call some of the Zodiacal signs male and others female, some bicorporal and others not, some tropical and others firm. Then there are male or female according as they have a nature co-operating in the begetting of males (or females). Moved by which, I think the Pythagoricians call the monad male, the dyad female, and the triad again male and in like manner the rest of the odd and even numbers. And some dividing each sign into dodecatemories employ nearly the same plan. For example, in Aries they call the first dodecatemory Aries and masculine, its second Taurus and feminine, and its third Gemini and masculine, and so on with the other parts. And they say that Gemini and Sagittarius which stands opposite to it and Virgo and Pisces are bicorporal signs, but the others not. And in like manner, those signs are tropical in which the Sun turns about and makes the turnings of the ambient, as, for example, the sign Aries and its opposite Libra, Capricorn and Cancer. For in Aries, the spring turning occurs, in Capricorn the winter, in Cancer the summer and in Libra the autumn. These things also and the system concerning them we have briefly set forth in the book before this, whence the lover of learning can learn how Euphrates the Peratic and Celbes the Carystian, the founders of the heresy, altering only the names, have really set down like things, having also paid immoderate attention to the art. For the astrologers also say that there are “terms” of the stars in which they deem the ruling stars to have greater power. For example in some (they do evil), but in others good, of which they call these malefic and those benefic. And they say that (the Planets) behold one another and are in harmony with one another as they appear in trine (or square). Now the stars beholding one another are figured in trine when they have a space of three signs between them, but in square if they have two. And as in the man the lower parts suffer with the head and the head suffers with the lower parts, thus do the things on earth with those above the Moon. But (yet) there is a certain difference and want of sympathy between them since they have not one and the same unity.

This alliance and difference of the stars, although a Chaldæan (doctrine), those of whom we have spoken before have taken as their own and have falsified the name of truth. (For they) announce as the utterance of Christ a strife of aeons and a falling-away of good powers to the bad, and proclaim reconciliations of good and wicked. Then they invoke Toparchs and Proastii, making for themselves also very many other names which are not obvious but systematize unsystematically the whole idea of the astrologers about the stars. As they have thus laid the foundation of an enormous error they shall be completely refuted by our appropriate arrangement. For I shall set side by side with the aforesaid Chaldaic art of the astrologers some of the doctrines of the Peratics, from which comparison it will be understood how the words of the Peratics are avowedly those of the astrologers, but not of Christ.

14. It seems well then to use for comparison a certain one of the books magnified by them wherein it is said: “I am a voice of awaking from sleep in the aeon of the night, (and) now I begin to lay bare the power from Chaos. The power is the mud of the abyss, which raises the mire of the imperishable watery void, the whole power of the convulsion, pale as water, ever-moving, bearing with it the stationary, holding back those that tremble, setting free those that approach, relieving those that sigh, bringing down those that increase, a faithful steward of the traces of the winds, taking advantage of the things thrown up by the twelve eyes of the Law, showing a seal to the power which arranges by itself the onrushing unseen water which is called Thalassa. Ignorance has called this power Kronos guarded with chains since he bound together the maze of the dense and cloudy and unknown and dark Tartarus. There are born after the image of this (power) Cepheus, Prometheus, Iapetus. (The) power to whom Thalassa is entrusted is masculo-feminine, who traces back the hissing (water) from the twelve mouths of the twelve pipes and after preparing distributes it. (This power) is small and reduces the boisterous restraining rising (of the sea) and seals up the ways of her paths, so that nothing should declare war or suffer change. The Typhonic daughter of this (power) is the faithful guard of all sorts of waters. Her name is Chorzar. Ignorance calls her Poseidôn, after whose likeness came Glaucus, Melicertes, Iö, Nebroë. He that is encircled with the 12-angled pyramid and darkens the gate into the pyramid with divers colours and perfects the whole blackness—this one is called Core whose 5 ministers are: first Ou, 2nd Aoai, 3rd Ouô, 4th Ouöab, 5th ... Other faithful stewards there are of his toparchy of day and night who rest in their authority. Ignorance has called them the wandering stars on which hangs perishable birth. Steward of the rising of the wind is Carphasemocheir (and second) Eccabaccara, but ignorance calls these Curetes. (The) third ruler of the winds is Ariel after whose image came Æolus (and) Briares. And ruler of the 12-houred night (is) Soclas whom ignorance has called Osiris. After his likeness there were born Admetus, Medea, Hellen, Aethusa. Ruler of the 12-houred day-time is Euno. He is steward of the rising of the first-blessed and ætherial (goddess) whom ignorance calls Isis. The sign of this (ruler) is the Dog-star after whose image were born Ptolemy son of Arsinoë, Didyme, Cleopatra, Olympias. (The) right hand power of God is she whom ignorance calls Rhea, after whose image were born Attis, Mygdon, Oenone. The left-hand power has authority over nurture whom ignorance calls Demeter. Her name is Bena. After the likeness of this (god) were born Celeus, Triptolemus, Misyr, Praxidice. (The) right-hand power has authority over seasons. Ignorance calls this (god) Mena after whose image were born, Bumegas, Ostanes, Hermes Trismegistus, Curites, Zodarion, Petosiris, Berosos, Astrampsychos, Zoroaster. (The) left-hand power of fire. Ignorance calls him Hephæstus after whose image were born Erichthonius, Achilleus, Capaneus, Phæthon, Meleager, Tydeus, Enceladus, Raphael, Suriel, Omphale. Three middle powers suspended in air (are) causes of birth. Ignorance calls them Fates, after whose image were born (the) house of Priam, (the) house of Laius, Ino, Autonoë, Agave, Athamas, Procne (the) Danaids, the Peliades. A masculo-feminine power there is ever childlike, who grows not old, (the) cause of beauty, of pleasure, of prime, of yearning, of desire, whom ignorance calls Eros, after whose image were born Paris, Narcissus, Ganymede, Endymion, Tithonus, Icarius, Leda, Amymonê, Thetis, (the) Hesperides, Jason, Leander, Hero.” These are the Proastii up to Aether. For thus he inscribes the book.

15. The heresy of the Peratæ, it has been made easily apparent to all, has been adapted from the (art) of the astrologers with a change of names alone. And their other books include the same method, if any one cared to go through them. For, as I have said, they think the unbegotten and overlying things to be the causes of birth of the begotten, and that our world, which they call that of form, came into being by emanation, and that all those stars together which are beheld in the heaven become the causes of birth in this world, they changing their names as is to be seen from a comparison of the Proastii. And secondly after the same fashion indeed, as they say that the world came into being from the emanation of her on high, thus they say that things here have their birth and death and are governed by the emanation from the stars. Since then the astrologers know the Ascendant and Mid-heaven and the Descendant and the Anti-meridian, and as the stars sometimes move differently from the perpetual turning of the universe, and at other times there are other succeedents to the cardinal point and (other) cadents from the cardinal points, (the Peratæ) treating the ordinance of the astrologers as an allegory, picture the cardinal points as it were God and monad and lord of all generation, and the succeedent as the left hand and the cadent the right. When therefore any one reading their writings finds a power spoken of by them as right or left, let him refer to the centre, the succeedent and the cadent, and he will clearly perceive that their whole system of practice has been established on astrological teaching.

16. But they call themselves Peratæ, thinking that nothing which has its foundations in generation can escape the fate determined from birth for the begotten. For if anything, he says, is begotten it also perishes wholly, as it seemed also to the Sibyl. But, he says, we alone who know the compulsion of birth and the paths whereby man enters into the world and have been carefully instructed—we alone can pass through and escape destruction. But water, he says, is destruction, and never, he says, did the world perish quicker than by water. But the water which rolls around the Proastii is, they say, Kronos. For such a power, he says, is of the colour of water and this power, that is Kronos, none of those who have been founded in generation can escape. For Kronos is set as a cause over every birth so that it shall be subject to destruction and no birth could occur in which Kronos is not an impediment. This, he says is what the poets say and the gods (themselves) also fear:—

Let earth be witness thereto and wide heaven above
And the water of Styx that flows below.
The greatest of oaths and most terrible to the blessed gods.—

(Homer, Odyssey, vv. 184 ff.)

But not only do the poets say this, he says, but also the wisest of the Greeks, whereof Heraclitus is one, who says, “For water becomes death to souls.”

This death (the Peratic) says seizes the Egyptians in the Red Sea with their chariots. And all the ignorant, he says, are Egyptians and this he says is the going out from Egypt (that is) from the body. For they think the body little Egypt (and) that it crosses over the Red Sea, that is, the water of destruction which is Kronos, and that it is beyond the Red Sea, that is birth, and comes into the desert, that is, outside generation where are together the gods of destruction and the god of salvation. But the gods of destruction, he says, are the stars which bring upon those coming into being the necessity of mutable generation. These, he said, Moses called the serpents of the desert which bite and cause to perish those who think they have crossed the Red Sea. Therefore, he says, to those sons of Israel who were bitten in the desert, Moses displayed the true and perfect serpent, those who believed on which were not bitten in the desert, that is, by the Powers. None then, he says, can save and set free those brought forth from the land of Egypt, that is, from the body and from this world, save only the perfect serpent, the full of the full. He who hopes on this, he says, is not destroyed by the serpents of the desert, that is, by the gods of generation. It is written, he says, in a book of Moses. This serpent, he says, is the Power which followed Moses, the rod which was turned into a serpent. And the serpents of the magicians who withstood the power of Moses in Egypt were the gods of destruction; but the rod of Moses overthrew them all and caused them to perish.

This universal serpent, he says, is the wise word of Eve. This, he says, is the mystery of Edem, this the river flowing out of Edem, this the mark which was set on Cain so that all that found him should not kill him. This, he says, is (that) Cain whose sacrifice was not accepted by the god of this world; but he accepted the bloody sacrifice of Abel, for the lord of this world delights in blood. He it is, he says, who in the last days appeared in man’s shape in the time of Herod, born after the image of Joseph who was sold from the hand of his brethren and to whom alone belonged the coat of many colours. This, he says, is he after the image of Esau whose garment was blessed when he was not present, who did not receive, he says, the blind man’s blessing, but became rich elsewhere taking nothing from the blind one, whose face Jacob saw as a man might see the face of God. Concerning whom he says, it is written that: “Nebrod was a giant hunting before the Lord.” There are, he says, as many counterparts of him as there were serpents seen in the desert biting the sons of Israel, from which that perfect one that Moses set up delivered those that were bitten. This, he says, is the saying: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” After his likeness was the brazen serpent in the desert which Moses set up. The similitude of this alone is always seen in the heaven in light. This he says is the mighty beginning about which it is written. About this he says is the saying: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him nothing was. That which was in Him was life.” And in Him, he says, Eve came into being (and) Eve is life. She, he says is Eve, mother of all living (the) nature common (to all), that is, to gods, angels, immortals, mortals, irrational beings, and rational ones; for, he says, “to all” speaking collectively. And if the eyes of any are blessed, he says, he will see when he looks upward to heaven the fair image of the serpent in the great summit of heaven turning about and becoming the source of all movement of all present things. And (the beholder) will know that without Him there is nothing framed of heavenly or of earthly things or of things below the earth—neither night, nor moon, nor fruits, nor generation, nor wealth, nor wayfaring, nor generally is there anything of things which are that He does not point out. In this, he says, is the great wonder beheld in the heavens by those who can see.

For against this summit (that is) the head which is the most difficult of all things to be believed by those who know it not,

“The setting and rising mingle with one another.”—

(Aratus, Phain., v. 62.)

This it is concerning which ignorance speaks:—

“The Dragon winds, great wonder of dread portent.”—

(Ibid., v. 46.)

and on either side of him Corona and Lyra are ranged and above, by the very top of his head, a piteous man, the Kneeler, is seen

“Holding the sole of the right foot of winding Draco.”—

(Ibid., v. 70.)

And in the rear of the Kneeler is the imperfect serpent grasped with both hands by Ophiuchus and prevented from touching the Crown lying by the Perfect Serpent.

17. This is the variegated wisdom of the Peratic heresy, which is difficult to describe completely, it being so tangled through having been framed from the art of astrology. So far as it was possible, therefore, we have set forth all its force in few words. But in order to expound their whole mind in epitome we think it right to add this: According to them the universe is Father, Son and Matter. Of these three every one contains within himself boundless powers. Now midway between Matter and the Father sits the Son, the Word, the Serpent, ever moving himself towards the immoveable Father and towards Matter (which itself) is moved. And sometimes he turns himself towards the Father and receives the powers in his own person, and when he has thus received them he turns towards Matter; and Matter being without quality and formless takes pattern from the forms which the Son has taken as patterns from the Father. But the Son takes pattern from the Father unspeakably and silently and unchangeably, that is, as Moses says the colours of the (sheep) that longed, flowed from the rods set up in the drinking-places. In such a way also did the powers flow from the Son to Matter according to the yearning of the power which (flowed) from the rods upon the things conceived. But the difference and unlikeness of the colours which flowed from the rods through the waters into the sheep is, he says, the difference of corruptible and incorruptible birth. Or rather, as a painter while taking nothing from the animals (he paints), yet transfers with his pencil to the drawing-tablet all their forms, thus the Son by his own power transfers to Matter the types of the Father. All things that are here are therefore the Father’s types and nothing else. For if any one, he says has strength enough to comprehend from the things here that he is a type from the Father on high transferred hither and made into a body, as in the conception from the rod, he becomes white, (and) wholly of one substance with the Father who is in the heavens, and returns thither. But if he does not light upon this doctrine, nor discover the necessity of birth, like an abortion brought forth in a night he perishes in a night. Therefore, says he, when the Saviour speaks of “Your Father who is in heaven” He means him from whom the Son takes the types and transfers them hither. And when He says “Your father is a manslayer from the beginning” he means the Ruler and Fashioner of Matter who receiving the types distributed by the Son has produced children here. Who is a manslayer from the beginning because his work makes for corruption and death. None therefore, he says, can be saved nor return (on high) save by the Son who is the Serpent. For as he brought from on high the Father’s types, so he again carries up from here those of them who have been awakened and have become types of the Father, transferring them thither from here as hypostatized from the Unhypostatized One. This, he says, is the saying “I am the Door.” But he transfers them, he says (as the light of vision) to those whose eyelids are closed, as the naphtha draws everywhere the fire to itself—or rather as the magnet the iron but nothing else, or as the sea-hawk’s spine the gold but nothing else, or as again (as) the chaff is drawn by the amber. Thus, he says, the perfect and consubstantial race which has been made the image (of the Father) but nought else is again led from the world by the Serpent, just as it was sent down here by him.

For the proof of this they bring forward the anatomy of the brain, likening the cerebrum to the Father from its immobility, and the cerebellum to the Son from its being moved and existing in serpent form. Which (last) they imagine ineffably and without giving any sign to attract through the pineal gland the spiritual and life-giving substance emanating from the Blessed One. Receiving which the cerebellum, as the Son silently transfers the forms to Matter, spreads abroad the seeds and genera of things born after the flesh, to the spinal marrow. By the use of this simile, they seem to introduce cleverly their ineffable mysteries handed down in silence which it is not lawful for us to utter. Nevertheless they will easily be comprehended from what I have said.

18. But since I think I have set forth clearly the Peratic heresy and by many words have made plain what had escaped (notice), and since it has mixed up everything with everything concealing its own peculiar poison, it seems right to proceed no further with the charge, the opinions laid down by them being sufficient accusation against them.