that is each of the threefold divisions has taken power. p. 220. And, as for the underlying dark water below, that the light has plunged into it and that the spark borne down (into it) ought to be restored and taken on high from it, the all-wise Sethians seem to have here borrowed from Homer when he says:—
“Let earth be witness and wide heaven above
And the water of Styx that flows below
The greatest oath and most terrible to the blessed gods.”[270]—
(Il. XV, 36-38.)
That is, the gods, according to Homer, think water something ill-omened and frightful, wherefore the theory of the Sethians says it is frightful to the Nous.
21. This is what they say and other things like it in endless writings. And they persuade those who are their disciples to read the theory of Composition and Mixture[271] which is studied by many others and by Andronicus the Peripatetic. The Sethians then say that the theory about Composition and Mixture is to be framed after this fashion: The light ray from on high has been compounded and the p. 221. very small spark has been lightly mingled[272] in the dark waters below, and (these two) have united and exist in one mass as one odour (results) from the many kinds of incense on the fire. And the expert who has as his test an acute sense of smell ought to delicately distinguish from the sole smell of the incense the different kinds of it set on the fire; as (for example) if it be storax and myrrh and frankincense or if anything else be mixed with it. And they make use of other comparisons, as when they say that if brass has been mixed with gold, a certain process[273] has been discovered which separates the gold from the brass. And in like manner if tin or brass or anything of the same kind be found mixed with silver, these by some better process of alloy are also separated. But even now any one distinguishes water mixed with wine. Thus, he says, if all things are mingled together they are distinguished. And truly, he says, learn from the animals. For when the animal is dead each (of its parts) is separated (from the rest) and thus when dissolved, the animal disappears. This he says is the saying: “I come not to bring peace upon the earth but a sword”[274]—that is to cut in twain and separate the things p. 222. which have been compounded together. For each of the compounds is cut in twain and separated when it lights on its proper place. For as there is one place of composition for all the animals, so there has been set up one place of dissolution, which no man knoweth, he says, save only we who are born again, spiritual not fleshly, whose citizenship is in the heavens above.
With these insinuations they corrupt their hearers, both when they misuse words, turning good sayings into bad as they wish, and when they conceal their own iniquity by what comparisons they choose. All things then, he says, which are compounds have their own peculiar place and run towards their own kindred things as the iron to the magnet, the straw to the amber, and the gold to the sea-hawk’s spine.[275] And thus the (ray) of light which was mingled with the water having received from teaching and learning (the knowledge of) its own proper place hastens to the Word come from on high in slave-like form and becomes with the Word a Word where the Word is, more (quickly) than the iron (flies) to the magnet.
p. 223.And that these things are so, he says, and that all compounded things are separated at their proper places, learn (thus):—There is among the Persians in the city Ampa near the Tigris a well, and near this well and above it has been built a cistern having three outlets. From which well if one draws, and takes up in a jar what is drawn from the well whatever it is and pours it into the cistern hard by; when it comes to the outlets and is received from each outlet in one vessel, it separates itself. And in the first outlet is exhibited an incrustation[276] of salt, and in the second bitumen, and in the third oil. But the oil is black, as he says Herodotus also recounts,[277] has a heavy odour and the Persians call it rhadinace. This simile of the well, say the Sethians, suffices for the truth of their proposition better than all that has been said above.
22. The opinion of the Sethians seems to us to have been made tolerably plain. But if any one wishes to learn the whole of their system let him read the book inscribed Paraphrase (of) Seth; for all their secrets he will find there enshrined.[278] But since we have set forth the things of the p. 224. Sethians[279] let us see also what Justinus thinks.