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,
[Sidenote: p. 204.] “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.[232]
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.[233] [Sidenote: p. 205.] 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,[234] and when he has thus received them he turns towards Matter; and Matter being without quality and formless takes pattern from the forms[235] 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,[236] 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 [Sidenote: p. 206.] types[237] 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,[238] (and) wholly of one substance[239] 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”[240] 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”[241] 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.[242] None therefore, he says, can be saved nor [Sidenote: p. 207.] 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[243] One. This, he says, is the saying “I am the Door.” But he transfers them, he says (as the light of vision)[244] 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.[245] Thus, he says, the perfect and consubstantial race which has been made the image[246] (of the Father) but nought else is again led from the world by the Serpent, just as it was sent down here by him.