ting his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven"[1] (for this man they declare to be of the intermediate class, even as they do that other who, though he professed to have wrought a large amount of righteousness, yet refused to follow Him, and was so overcome by [the love of] riches, as never to reach perfection)—this one it pleases them to place in the animal class;—the spiritual, again, when He said, "Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God,"[2] and when He said to Zaccheus the publican, "Make haste, and come down, for to-day I must abide in thine house"[3]—for these they declared to have belonged to the spiritual class. Also the parable of the leaven which the woman is described as having hid in three measures of meal, they declare to make manifest the three classes. For, according to their teaching, the woman represented Sophia; the three measures of meal, the three kinds of men—spiritual, animal, and material; while the leaven denoted the Saviour Himself. Paul, too, very plainly set forth the material, animal, and spiritual, saying in one place, "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy;"[4] and in another place, "But the animal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit;"[5] and again: "He that is spiritual judgeth all things."[6] And this, "The animal man receiveth not the things of the Spirit," they affirm to have been spoken concerning the Demiurge, who, as being animal, knew neither his mother who was spiritual, nor her seed, nor the Æons in the Pleroma. And that the Saviour received first-fruits of those whom He was to save, Paul declared when he said, "And if the first-fruits be holy, the lump is also holy,"[7] teaching that the expression "first-fruits" denoted that which is spiritual, but that "the lump" meant us, that is, the animal church, the lump of which they say He assumed, and blended it with Himself, inasmuch as He is "the leaven."
4. Moreover, that Achamoth wandered beyond the Pleroma, and received form from Christ, and was sought after by the
