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deceived by you, the very center, from which both left and right fall, will be some one thing and it will not be possible for what falls from it, both right and left, to be alien to the one something 1.440. And of necessity the all will be brought back to the one being, than which nothing is higher, nor subordinate, nor lower, except the things created by it. And this will be manifest to those who learn the truth, that God is one, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But if God is one, from whom are all things, there is in him neither anything left nor another defect nor anything subordinate, except the things created by him. But all things after the Father and Son and Holy Spirit were well created and for their subsistence have come forth well and abundantly from him. 2. But if again such a one, coming forth as another serpent, says to us that the right and the left exist outside the one, but that he himself is the very center and draws to himself the right things and rejoices in them, and calls these things right and light, but thrusts away the left things as alien to him and lying on the left, let him tell me from where he gets this geometry, so that he may rightly arrange an unchangeable right and left. For among us, right or left is reasonably named from the limbs fixed in the body, in which no change ever occurs. But things outside of us can be sometimes right, sometimes left. For to everyone looking toward the east, the south or midday will be called right, but the northern or arctic region, left. But the opposite will be found when a certain person turns toward the western parts, the regions having different names; that which a short while ago was right, both southern and midday, being changed again to the left, and that which was inclined to a person's left, whether arctic or northern region, being changed to his right. Where then did the deceiver invent for himself the geometry according to God? And oh, this great nonsense that confuses all things. For he says that the Deficiency came into being after the thirty 1.441 aeons. From where then have you grasped the nature of the Deficiency, you there, or the power that fell away, tell me? For if you found this from an offshoot of the things above *, not created but begotten, since for you and your master created things are defined not as created, but as begotten and from participation, each nature having received from each, so that the things afterwards begotten * spring up, then surely according to his own word you arm yourself against yourself. For if the later power and the apostasy also came from the things above, and it grew, so to speak, and sprouted, then it partakes of the gifts from above, since the later partakes in the Pleroma and the Pleroma in the later part, and this will not differ at all from that, nor that from this, since both partake in each other at their ends. And by every argument you will be refuted as having the sustenance of your error from the insemination of a demon, you most wretched of all wretched men. 3. But lest we omit anything of what is done and said among some, even if in each there are many leaders who boast of mythologizing different things in place of others beyond their own teachers, I will still persist in describing those who are in this heresy, but say things different from these men, I mean concerning Epiphanes the son of Isidore, who, on the pretext of exhortatory words, brought himself down into an even greater abyss of misery, having received his pretexts, to tell the truth, from Carpocrates his own father according to the flesh, 1.442 but being joined to the heresy of the aforementioned Secundus, being himself also one of the Secundians. For great is the difference of each of the deceived from another, and a jumbled, so to speak, multimixture of empty talk. For this Epiphanes, as I said, being the son of Carpocrates, and of a mother called Alexandria, to these as

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σοῦ ἠπατημένοι, τὸ μεσαίτατον, ἀφ' οὗπερ καὶ ἀριστερὰ καὶ δεξιὰ ὑποπίπτουσιν, ἔσται ἕν τι καὶ οὐ δυνήσεται ἀλλότριον εἶναι τοῦ ἑνός τινος 1.440 τὸ ἐξ αὐτοῦ ὑποπῖπτον δεξιόν τε καὶ εὐώνυμον, καὶ ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἀναχθήσεται τὸ πᾶν εἰς τὸ ἓν ὄν, οὗ ἀνώτατον οὐδὲ ἕν ἐστιν οὔτε ὑποβεβηκὸς οὔτε κατώτατον, εἰ μὴ τὰ ὑπ' αὐτοῦ ἐκτισμένα. καὶ ἔσται τοῦτο φανερὸν τοῖς τὴν ἀλήθειαν καταμανθάνουσιν, ὅτι εἷς θεός ἐστιν, πατὴρ καὶ υἱὸς καὶ ἅγιον πνεῦμα. εἰ δὲ εἷς θεός ἐστιν, ἐξ οὗ τὰ πάντα, οὔτε τι ἀριστερόν ἐστιν ἐν αὐτῷ οὔτε ἐλάττωμα ἕτερον οὔτε τι ὑποβεβηκός, πλὴν τῶν ὑπ' αὐτοῦ ἐκτισμένων. τὰ δὲ μετὰ πατέρα καὶ υἱὸν καὶ ἅγιον πνεῦμα πάντα καλῶς ἐκτισμένα καὶ εἰς σύστασιν ὑπ' αὐτοῦ ἀφθόνως εὖ προεληλυθότα. 2. Εἰ δὲ καὶ πάλιν ἐρεῖ ὁ τοιοῦτος ἡμῖν προελθὼν ἕτερος ὄφις, ὅτι τὰ μὲν δεξιὰ καὶ εὐώνυμα ἐκτὸς τοῦ ἑνὸς ὑπάρχει, αὐτὸς δὲ μεσαίτατός ἐστιν καὶ ἑαυτῷ μὲν προσάγεται τὰ δεξιὰ καὶ χαίρει τούτοις, δεξιὰ δὲ ταῦτα καλεῖ καὶ φῶς, τὰ δὲ εὐώνυμα ὡς ἀλλότρια αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐπὶ ἀριστερᾷ κείμενα ἀπωθεῖται, λεγέτω μοι πόθεν λαμβάνει ταύτην τὴν γεωμετρίαν, ἵνα καλῶς ῥυθμίσῃ ἀμετάστατον δεξιάν τε καὶ εὐώνυμον. παρ' ἡμῖν γὰρ δεξιὰ εἰκότως ὀνομάζεται ἤτοι ἀριστερὰ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐν τῷ σώματι πεπηγμένων μελῶν, ἐν οἷς οὐδέποτε ἐναλλαγὴ γίνεται. τὰ δὲ ἐκτὸς ἡμῶν δύναται εἶναι ποτὲ μὲν δεξιά, ποτὲ δὲ εὐώνυμα. παντὶ μὲν γὰρ τῷ ὁρῶντι κατὰ ἀνατολὴν νότος εἴτ' οὖν μεσημβρία δεξιὰ κληθήσεται, τὸ κλίμα δὲ τὸ βόρειον ἤτοι ἀρκτῷον ἀριστερόν. τὸ δὲ ἀνάπαλιν ἐπὶ τὰ δυτικὰ μέρη ἀναστραφέντος ἀνθρώπου τινὸς εὑρεθήσεται ἑτερωνύμως τὰ κλίματα· ὅπερ πρὸ ὥρας δεξιὸν ὑπῆρχεν νότιόν τε καὶ μεσημβρινόν, εἰς ἀριστερὰ αὖθις μεταβαλλόμενον, καὶ τὸ εἰς ἀριστερὰν τοῦ τινος κεκλιμένον ἀνθρώπου εἴτ' οὖν ἀρκτῷον εἴτ' οὖν βόρειον κλίμα, εἰς δεξιὰν αὐτοῦ μεταβαλλόμενον. ποῦ τοίνυν ὁ ἀπατεὼν ἐφηῦρεν ἑαυτῷ τὴν κατὰ θεὸν γεωμετρίαν; καὶ ὦ τῆς τοιαύτης πολλῆς ληρολογίας τῆς τὰ πάντα συγχεούσης. φάσκει δὲ τὸ Ὑστέρημα μετὰ τοὺς τριάκοντα 1.441 αἰῶνας γεγενῆσθαι. πόθεν ἄρα τὴν τοῦ Ὑστερήματος φύσιν κατείληφας, ὦ οὗτος, ἢ τὴν ἀποστᾶσαν δύναμιν, λέγε; εἰ μὲν γὰρ εὗρες ταύτην ἀπὸ βλαστήματος τῶν ἄνω *, οὐ κτιστὴν ἀλλὰ γεννητήν, ἐπειδὴ σοί τε καὶ τῷ σου ἐπιστάτῃ οὐκ ἐκτισμένα τὰ κτιστὰ ὁρίζεται, ἀλλὰ γεννητὰ καὶ ἀπὸ μετουσίας, ἑκάστης φύσεως παρ' ἑκάστης λαβούσης, τὰ αὖθις γεννώμενα * ἀναφῦναι, ἄρα γε κατὰ τὸν ἑαυτοῦ λόγον κατὰ σαυτοῦ ὁπλίζῃ. εἰ γὰρ ἀπὸ τῶν ἄνω καὶ ἡ ὑστέρα δύναμις καὶ ἡ ἀποστασία γεγένηται, ἔφυ δὲ ὡς εἰπεῖν καὶ ἐβλάστησεν, μετέχει ἄρα τῶν ἄνω χαρισμάτων, ἐπειδὴ ἐπικοινωνεῖ τῷ Πληρώματι ἡ ὑστέρα καὶ τὸ Πλήρωμα τῇ ὑστέρᾳ, καὶ οὐδὲν διενεχθήσεται τοῦτο πρὸς ἐκεῖνο οὔτε ἐκεῖνο πρὸς τοῦτο, ἑκατέρων κατὰ τὰ τέρματα ἀλλήλοις ἐπικοινωνούντων. καὶ ἐκ παντὸς λόγου διελεγχθήσῃ ἐξ ἐπισπορᾶς δαίμονος ἔχων τὴν τῆς πλάνης σου βόσκησιν, πάντων ἐλεεινῶν ἐλεεινότατε. 3. Ἵνα δὲ μὴ παραλείψωμέν τι τῶν παρά τισιν γινομένων τε καὶ λεγομένων, κἄν τε ἐν ἑκάστῃ πολλοὶ εἶεν οἱ ἔξαρχοι καὶ αὐχοῦντες ἕτερα ἀνθ' ἑτέρων ὑπὲρ τοὺς αὐτῶν διδασκάλους μυθοποιεῖσθαι, ἔτι ἐπιμενῶ ὑφηγούμενος τοὺς ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ αἱρέσει ὄντας, ἕτερα δὲ παρὰ τούτους λέγοντας, φημὶ δὲ περὶ Ἐπιφάνους τοῦ Ἰσιδώρου, ἐκ προφάσεως παραινετικῶν ῥημάτων ἑαυτὸν ἔτι εἰς περισσότερον βυθὸν ταλαιπωρίας καταγαγόντος, τἀληθῆ μὲν εἰπεῖν ἀπὸ Καρποκράτους τοῦ ἰδίου πατρὸς κατὰ σάρκα εἰληφότος τὰς προφάσεις, 1.442 συνημμένου δὲ τῇ αἱρέσει τοῦ προειρημένου Σεκούνδου καὶ αὐτοῦ τῶν Σεκουνδιανῶν ὑπάρχοντος. πολλὴ γὰρ ἑκάστου τῶν πεπλανημένων πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον διαφορὰ καὶ συρφετώδης ὡς εἰπεῖν πολυμιξία κενοφωνίας. οὗτος γὰρ ὁ Ἐπιφάνης, ὡς ἔφην, υἱὸς ὢν Καρποκράτους, μητρὸς δὲ Ἀλεξανδρείας οὕτω καλουμένης, τούτοις ὡς