For He who made choice of the apostles, that they might be a type of those Æons existing in the Pleroma, would never have constituted them types of some and not of others; but by means of the apostles He would have tried to preserve an image and to exhibit a type of those Æons that exist in the Pleroma.
2. Moreover, we must not keep silence respecting Paul, but demand from them after the type of what Æon that apostle has been handed down to us, unless perchance [they affirm that he is a representative] of the Saviour compounded of them [all], who derived his being from the collected gifts of the whole, and whom they term All Things, as having been formed out of them all. Respecting this being the poet Hesiod has strikingly expressed himself, styling him Pandora—that is, "The gift of all"—for this reason, that the best gift in the possession of all was centred in him. In describing these gifts the following account is given: Hermes (so[1] he is called in the Greek language), Αἱμυλίους[2] τε λόγους καὶ ἐπίκλοπον ἦθος αὐτοὺς Κάτθετο (or to express this in the English[3] language), "implanted words of fraud and deceit in their minds, and thievish habits," for the purpose of leading foolish men astray, that such should believe their falsehoods. For their Mother—that is, Leto[4]—secretly stirred them up (whence also she is called Leto,[5] according to the meaning of the Greek word, because she secretly stirred up men), without the knowledge of the Demiurge, to give forth profound and unspeakable mysteries to itching ears.[6] And not only did their Mother bring it about that this mystery should be declared by Hesiod; but very skilfully also by means of the lyric poet Pindar, when he describes to the Demiurge[7] the
- ↑ This clause is, of course, an interpolation by the Latin translator.
- ↑ The words are loosely quoted memoriter, as is the custom with Irenæus. See Hesiod, Works and Days, i. 77, etc.
- ↑ Latin, of course, in the text.
- ↑ There is here a play upon the words Λητὼ and ληθεῖν, the former being supposed to be derived from the latter, so as to denote secrecy.
- ↑ This clause is probably an interpolation by the translator.
- ↑ 2 Tim. iv. 3.
- ↑ "Cœlet Demiurgo," such is the reading in all the mss. and editions. Harvey, however, proposes to read "celet Demiurgum;" but the change
