CONTENTS.
vii
| CHAP. | PAGE | ||
| 3. | The Bythus and Pleroma of the Valentinians, as well as the God of Marcion, shown to be absurd; the world was actually created by the same Being who had conceived the idea of it, and was not the fruit of defect or ignorance, | 124 | |
| 4. | The absurdity of the supposed vacuum and defect of the heretics is demonstrated, | 125 | |
| 5. | This world was not formed by any other beings within the territory which is contamed by the Father, | 129 | |
| 6. | The angels and the Creator of the world could not have been ignorant of the Supreme God, | 132 | |
| 7. | Created things are not the images of those Æons who are within the Pleroma, | 134 | |
| 8. | Created things are not a shadow of the Pleroma, | 140 | |
| 9. | There is but one Creator of the world, God the Father: this the constant belief of the church, | 142 | |
| 10. | Perverse interpretations of Scripture by the heretics: God created all things out of nothing, and not from preexistent matter, | 144 | |
| 11. | The heretics, from their disbelief of the truth, have fallen into an abyss of error: reasons for investigating their systems, | 146 | |
| 12. | The Triacontad of the heretics errs both by defect and excess: Sophia could never have produced anything apart from her consort; Logos and Sige could not have been contemporaries, | 147 | |
| 13. | The first order of production maintained by the heretics is altogether indefensible, | 152 | |
| 14. | Valentinus and his followers derived the principles of their system from the heathen; the names only are changed, | 160 | |
| 15. | No account can be given of these productions, | 168 | |
| 16. | The Creator of the world either produced of Himself the images of things to be made, or the Pleroma was formed after the image of some previous system; and so on ad infinitum, | 170 | |
| 17. | Inquiry into the production of the Æons: whatever its supposed nature, it is in every respect inconsistent; and on the hypothesis of the heretics, even Nous and the Father Himself would be stained with ignorance, | 172 | |
| 18. | Sophia was never really in ignorance or passion; her Enthymesis could not have been separated from herself, or exhibited special tendencies of its own, | 180 | |
