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[183] which may be [Sidenote: p. 186.] 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)[184] is called Perfect Good and Fatherly Greatness.[185] 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.[186] 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[187] in the days of Herod a certain triple-bodied and triple-powered[188] man called Christ, containing within Himself all the compounds[189] and powers from [Sidenote: p. 187.] 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.”[190] 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.[191] 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.”[192] 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,”[193] he says, it means the third part of the cosmos (to wit) that of form. For the third part [Sidenote: p. 188.] which he calls the world must be destroyed, but the two overlying ones preserved from destruction.[194]