2. But among them there was one aeon, the last and the youngest of the twelve ten, which came from Man and the Church, i.e. Wisdom, and felt passion without experiencing the embrace of her husband the Desired; this passion arose in the aeons derived from Mind and Truth, but passed on to this aeon, seduced, apparently, by love, but in fact by audacity, because it did not have such close communion as the Mind has with the perfect Father. Passion consisted in the desire to investigate the Father; for Wisdom, as they say, desired to comprehend his greatness. But she could not do it, because she took up an impossible task; and being in a very great tension, because of the greatness of the depth and inexplicability of the Father, and constantly stretching forward through a special love for Him, it could have been swallowed up in the sweetness of the Father in the end, and would have resolved into the universal essence, had it not met with the power that strengthens and guards everything beyond the ineffable majesty. This force is called the Limit (OroV); by it she was restrained and strengthened, and with difficulty she returned to herself, and being convinced that the Father was incomprehensible, she laid aside her former thoughts, together with the passion that had arisen in consequence of her excessive surprise.

3. 

Having spent a long time in these passionate states, she undertook a conversion, and tried to return to the Father; but after a few efforts she weakened and began to beseech the Father. Other aeons pleaded with her, and especially the Mind. Therefore it is said that the essence of matter received its first beginning from ignorance, sorrow, fear, and amazement.

4. And the Father then produces through the Only-begotten the aforesaid Limit, an aeon without a couple and unmarried in the Father's own image. For the Father is sometimes combined with Silence, now they think to place above the difference between the male and female sexes. This limit is called the Cross, and the Liberator, and the Separator, and the Limiter, and the Leader (Luke 3:17). By means of this limit, they say, Wisdom is purified and strengthened, and restored in her couple. For, after the separation of Thought from it, together with the passion that surpassed it, it itself remained within the Plyroma; but its Thought, together with its passion, is separated and fenced off by the Limit, and being outside the Plyroma, although it is a spiritual essence, as a certain natural striving of the Aeon, it has no image and form, because it has received nothing. For this reason it is called a weak and feminine fruit.

5. After it had separated from the Plyroma of the Aeons, and its mother had been restored to her own combination. The Only-begotten, in accordance with the Father's providence, so that any of the aeons should not suffer like Wisdom, produced another couple into the stronghold and fortification of the Plyroma: Christ and the Holy Spirit, by which the aeons were put in order. For Christ instructed them concerning the nature of the couple, and taught them to be content with the concept of the Unbegotten, and proclaimed among them the knowledge of the Father, that he is incomprehensible and incomprehensible, and cannot be seen or heard, and is known only through the Only-begotten. And the reason for the eternal abiding for others is that the nature of the Father is incomprehensible, and the reason for their bringing into being and education is that which is comprehensible in the Father, that is, in the Son. This is what the newly-brought Christ did among the aeons.

6. But the Holy Spirit made them all equal, taught them to give thanks, and brought them to true peace. Thus, they say, the aeons became equal to each other both in image and in mood: all became minds, all in words, all men, and all Christs; In the same way, the feminine aeons have all become truths, all lives, spirits, and churches. When everything was firmly established and finally calmed down, then, they say, with great joy they sang the praises of the First Father, who enjoyed much joy. And for this beneficence, the aeons of the whole pleroma, by unanimous desire and decision, with the permission of Christ and the Spirit, brought and gathered together that each of the aeons had in itself the best and the most flourishing, and all this, harmoniously binding and carefully uniting, produced to the honor and glory of the Deep a work, the most perfect beauty and star of the Pleroma, the perfect fruit of Jesus, who is called both Saviour and Christ and the Word after the name of the Father, and then Pan, because he is from all. Together with him they produced in honor of themselves companions to him, angels of the same kind.

Hl. III. Places of Holy Scripture to which the Heretics Referred

1. 

But this, they say, is not stated clearly, because not everyone contains knowledge, but is mysteriously indicated by the Saviour for those who are able to understand in parables, namely: thirty aeons, as we said before, are indicated by the thirty years, in which, in their opinion, the Saviour did nothing openly, and by the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. And Paul, they say, many times very clearly names these aeons, and even observed their order, saying thus: "To all generations of the ages of the age" (Ephesians 3:21). And we, too, when we say at thanksgiving, "forever and ever," signify these same aeons. And wherever a century or centuries are used, everywhere they find an indication of these aeons.

2. And the works of the Twelve Aeons are indicated by the fact that the Lord, being twelve years old, conversed with the teachers of the law (Luke 2:42) and the election of the Apostles, for there are twelve Apostles (Acts 1:3). The remaining eighteen aeons are indicated in the fact that the Lord, after His resurrection from the dead, dwelt with His disciples, according to them, for eighteen months (Acts 1:3). In addition, the two initial letters of His name, i.e., iota (i) and ita (h), clearly indicate the eldest aeons. In the same way, they say, the first letter in the name of the Lord: iota (i) means ten aeons; and therefore it is as if the Saviour said: "One jot, or one tittle, shall not pass away, until all things are fulfilled" (Matt. 5:18).

3. The passion that was born in the twelfth Aeon, they say, is signified by the apostasy of Judas, who was the twelfth among the apostles, and also by the fact that the Lord suffered in the twelfth month; for, in their opinion, after His baptism, He preached for one year. A very clear indication of the same is the bleeding woman, for after twelve years of suffering, she was healed at the coming of the Saviour through the touch of His criment, and therefore the Saviour said: "Who hath touched me" (Mark 5:31)? teaching the disciples about the mystery that took place among the aeons and about the healing of the affected aeon. For she who suffered for twelve years signifies that power: it was her essence that stretched out and spread out without end, and if she had not touched the garment of the Son, that is, the Truth of the first quaternary, which is signified by the criterion, she would have been resolved into a common essence. However, she stopped and freed herself from suffering; for the power that proceeded from Him—and this power, according to them, is the Limit—healed her, and suffering departed from her.

4. And that the Saviour, consisting of all, is all (to pan), is said to be shown by the words: "Every male child that opens the bed" (Luke 2:23; Exodus 13:2). Being all, He opened the bed of the Thought of the suffering aeon, which is also called the second Osmeritsa, banished outside the Plyroma; We will talk about it a little later. For this reason, they say, Paul clearly says: "And He is all" (Col. 3:11). And again: "all things to Him, and all things out of Him" (Rom. 11:36), and again: "In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead" (Col. 2:9); and also in the words: "to lead all things in Christ by God" (Eph. 1:10). This is how they explain these and other similar words.

5. Then, concerning the Limit which they recognize, which they call by many other names, they assert that it has two activities: binding and dividing; and to the extent that it gives strength and support, it is the Cross, and to the extent that it divides and delimits, it is the Limit. And the Saviour, they say, pointed to the activity of the Limit: and first, to the binding in the words: "He that beareth not his cross, and cometh not after me, cannot become my disciple" (Luke 14:27); and: "Taking up the cross, follow me" (Mark 10:21); and to the dividing clause in the words: "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34). And John, they say, declared the same thing, saying: "A spade is in His hand, and he will cleanse the threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His garner: and he will burn the straw with unquenchable fire" (Luke 3:17), and by this he showed the activity of the Reach. For the shovel, according to their interpretation, is the Cross, which, moreover, destroys all material things, like fire to stubble, and purifies those who are saved like the winnowing of wheat. And the Apostle Paul himself, they say, mentions this cross in this way: "The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us that are saved is the power of God" (1 Cor. 1:18); and again: "Let me boast of nothing but the cross of Jesus: by which the world was crucified unto me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14).

6. Thus they speak of their Pleroma and of the formation of the universe, striving to adapt beautiful sayings to their evil inventions. And with the help of misinterpretation and improper interpretation, they try to compose proofs in their favor not only from the words of the Gospel and the Apostles, but also from the law and the prophets. For they contain many parables and parables, which by mutual means can be referred to many things by means of explanation; then they, sometimes with great violence and cunningly, adapt them to their own invention, and thus captivate and lead away from the truth those who do not firmly believe in one God the Father Almighty and in one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God.