who have wandered from the Father, back to knowledge and to His fellowship. The search into the greatness of the Father became to her a passion leading to destruction; but the Lord, having suffered, and bestowing the knowledge of the Father, conferred on us salvation. Her passion, as they declare, gave origin to a female offspring, weak, infirm, unformed, and ineffective; but His passion gave rise to strength and power. For the Lord, through means of suffering, "ascending into the lofty place, led captivity captive, gave gifts to men,"[1] and conferred on those that believe in Him the power "to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and on all the power of the enemy,"[2] that is, of the leader of apostasy. Our Lord also by His passion destroyed death, and dispersed error, and put an end to corruption, and destroyed ignorance, while He manifested life and revealed truth, and bestowed the gift of incorruption. But their Æon, when she had suffered, established[3] ignorance, and brought forth a substance without shape, out of which all material works have been produced—death, corruption, error, and such like.
4. Judas, then, the twelfth in order of the disciples, was not a type of the suffering Æon, nor, again, was the passion of the Lord; for these two things have been shown to be in every respect mutually dissimilar and inharmonious. This is the case not only as respects the points which I have already mentioned, but with regard to the very number. For that Judas the traitor is the twelfth in order, is agreed upon by all, there being twelve apostles mentioned by name in the Gospel. But this Æon is not the twelfth, but the thirtieth; for, according to the views under consideration, there were not twelve Æons only produced by the will of the Father, nor was she sent forth the twelfth in order: they reckon her, [on the contrary,] as having been produced in the thirtieth place.
- ↑ Ps. lxviii. 18; Eph. iv. 8.
- ↑ Luke x. 19.
- ↑ Though the reading "substituit" is found in all the MSS. and editions, it has been deemed corrupt, and "sustinait" has been proposed instead of it. Harvey supposes it the equivalent of ὑπέστησε, and then somewhat strangely adds "for ἀπέστησε." There seems to us no difficulty in the word, and consequently no necessity for change.
