Chapter XIX.—Palpable Absurdities and Contradictions in the System Respecting Achamoth and the Demiurge.

And yet there is not any agreement between the propriety of the names and that of the works, from which all the names are suggested; since all of them ought to have borne the name of her by whom the things were done, unless after all200    Jam. it turn out that they were not made by her.  For, although they say that Achamoth devised these forms in honour of the Æons, they yet201    Rursus. transfer this work to Soter as its author, when they say that he202    This is the force of the “qui” with the subjunctive verb. operated through her, so far as to give her the very image of the invisible and unknown Father—that is, the image which was unknown and invisible to the Demiurge; whilst he203    Soter. formed this same Demiurge in imitation204    Effingeret. of Nus the son of Propator;205    There seems to be a relative gradation meant among these extra-Pleroma beings, as there was among the Æons of the Pleroma; and, further, a relation between the two sets of beings—Achamoth bearing a relation to Propator, the Demiurge to Nus, etc. and whilst the archangels, who were the work of the Demiurge, resembled the other Æons. Now, when I hear of such images of the three, I ask, do you not wish me to laugh at these pictures of their most extravagant painter? At the female Achamoth, a picture of the Father?  At the Demiurge, ignorant of his mother, much more so of his father? At the picture of Nus, ignorant of his father too, and the ministering angels, facsimiles of their lords? This is painting a mule from an ass, and sketching Ptolemy from Valentinus.

CAPUT XIX.

Sed nec nominum proprietas competit proprietati operum, de quibus nomina omnia, cum deberet illa haec omnia vocitari, a qua res agebantur, nisi quod jam nec ab illa. Cum enim dicant Achamoth in honorem 0573B Aeonum imagines commentatam, rursus hoc in Soterem auctorem detorquent, qui per illam sit operatus: ut ipsam quidem, imaginem patris invisibilis et incogniti daret; incognitam scilicet et invisibilem Demiurgo, eumdem autem Demiurgum Nun filium effingeret, Archangeli vero Demiurgi opus, reliquos Aeonas exprimerent. Cum imagines audio tantas trium, quaero, non vis nunc ut imagines rideam perversissimi 0574A pictoris illorum? Foeminam Achamoth, imaginem patris? et ignarum matris Demiurgum, multo magis patris ? Imaginem Nus ignorantis patrem? et angelos famulos simulacra dominorum? Hoc est mulum de asino pingere, et Ptolomaeum describere de Valentino .