2. Peratæ.[182]
12. There is also indeed a certain other (heresy), the Peratic, the blasphemy of whose (followers) against Christ has for many years evaded (us). Whose secret mysteries it now seems fitting for us to bring into the open. They suppose the cosmos to be one, divided into three parts. But of this triple division, one part according to them is, as it were, a single principle like a great source[183] which may be p. 186. cut by the mind into boundless sections. And the first and chiefest section according to them is the triad and (the one part of it)[184] is called Perfect Good and Fatherly Greatness.[185] But the second part of this triad of theirs is, as it were, a certain boundless multitude of powers which have come into being from themselves, while the third is (the world of) form. And the first is unbegotten and is good; and the second is good (and) self-begotten, while the third is begotten.[186] Whence they say expressly that there are three Gods, three logoi, three minds, and three men. For they assign to each part of the world of the divided divisibility, gods and logoi and minds and men and the rest. But they say that from on high, from the unbegottenness and the first section of the cosmos, when the cosmos had already been brought to completion, there came down through causes which we shall declare later[187] in the days of Herod a certain triple-bodied and triple-powered[188] man called Christ, containing within Himself all the compounds[189] and powers from p. 187. the three parts of the cosmos. And this, he says is the saying: “The whole Pleroma was pleased to dwell within Him bodily and the whole godhead” of the Triad thus divided “is in Him.”[190] For, he says that there were brought down from the two overlying worlds, (to wit) the unbegotten and the self-begotten, unto this world in which we are, seeds of all powers. But what is the manner of their descent we shall see later.[191] Then he says that Christ was brought down from on high from the unbegottenness so that through His descent all the threefold divisions should be saved. For the things, he says, brought down below shall ascend through Him; but those which take counsel together against those brought down from above shall be banished and after they have been punished shall be rooted out. This, he says, is the saying: “The Son of Man came not into the world to destroy the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”[192] He calls “the world,” he says, the two overlying portions, (to wit) the unbegotten and the self-begotten. When the Scripture says: “Lest ye be judged with the world,”[193] he says, it means the third part of the cosmos (to wit) that of form. For the third part p. 188. which he calls the world must be destroyed, but the two overlying ones preserved from destruction.[194]
13. Let us first learn, then, how they who have taken this teaching from the astrologers insult Christ, working destruction for those who follow them in such error. For the astrologers, having declared the cosmos to be one, divided it[195] into the twelve fixed parts of the Zodiacal signs, and call the cosmos of the fixed Zodiacal signs one unwandering world. But the other, they say, is the world of the planets alike in power and in position and in number which exists as far as the Moon.[196] And that one world receives from the other a certain power and communion, and that things below partake of things above. But so that what is said shall be made plain, I will use in part the very words of the astrologers,[197] recalling to the readers what was said before in the place where we set forth the whole art of astrology. Their doctrines then are these: From the emanation of the stars the genitures of things below are influenced. For the Chaldæans, scrutinizing p. 189. the heavens with great care, said that (the seven stars) account for the active causes of everything which happens to us; but that the degrees of the Zodiacal circle work with them. (Then they divide the Zodiacal circle into) 12 parts, and each Zodiacal sign into 30 degrees and each degree into 60 minutes; for these they call the least and the undivided. And they call some of the Zodiacal signs male and others female, some bicorporal and others not, some tropical and others firm. Then there are male or female according as they have a nature co-operating in the begetting of males (or females). Moved by which, I think[198] the Pythagoricians[199] call the monad male, the dyad female, and the triad again male and in like manner the rest of the odd and even numbers. And some dividing each sign into dodecatemories employ p. 190. nearly the same plan. For example, in Aries they call the first dodecatemory Aries and masculine, its second Taurus and feminine, and its third Gemini and masculine, and so on with the other parts. And they say that Gemini and Sagittarius which stands opposite to it and Virgo and Pisces are bicorporal signs, but the others not. And in like manner, those signs are tropical in which the Sun turns about and makes the turnings of the ambient, as, for example, the sign Aries and its opposite Libra, Capricorn and Cancer. For in Aries, the spring turning occurs, in Capricorn the winter, in Cancer the summer and in Libra the autumn. These things also and the system concerning them we have briefly set forth in the book before this, whence the lover of learning can learn how Euphrates the Peratic and Celbes the Carystian, the founders of the heresy, altering only the names, have really set down like things, having also paid immoderate attention to the art. p. 191. For the astrologers also say that there are “terms” of the stars in which they deem the ruling stars to have greater power. For example in some (they do evil), but in others good, of which they call these malefic and those benefic. And they say that (the Planets) behold one another and are in harmony with one another as they appear in trine (or square). Now the stars beholding one another are figured in trine when they have a space of three signs between them, but in square if they have two. And as in the man the lower parts suffer with the head and the head suffers with the lower parts, thus do the things on earth p. 192. with those above the Moon. But (yet) there is a certain difference and want of sympathy between them since they have not one and the same unity.
This alliance and difference of the stars, although a Chaldæan (doctrine), those of whom we have spoken before have taken as their own and have falsified the name of truth. (For they) announce as the utterance of Christ a strife of aeons and a falling-away of good powers to the bad, and proclaim reconciliations of good and wicked.[200] Then they invoke Toparchs and Proastii,[201] making for themselves also very many other names which are not obvious but systematize unsystematically the whole idea of the astrologers about the stars. As they have thus laid the foundation of an enormous error they shall be completely refuted by our appropriate arrangement. For I shall set side by side with the aforesaid Chaldaic art of the astrologers some of the doctrines of the Peratics, from which comparison it will be p. 193. understood how the words of the Peratics are avowedly those of the astrologers, but not of Christ.
14. It seems well then to use for comparison a certain one of the books[202] magnified by them wherein it is said: “I am a voice of awaking from sleep in the aeon of the night, (and) now I begin to lay bare the power from Chaos. The power is the mud of the abyss, which raises the mire of the imperishable watery void, the whole power of the convulsion, pale as water, ever-moving, bearing with it the stationary, holding back those that tremble, setting free those that approach, relieving those that sigh, bringing down those that increase, a faithful steward of the traces of the winds, taking advantage of the things thrown up by the p. 194. twelve eyes of the Law,[203] showing a seal to the power which arranges by itself the onrushing unseen water which is called Thalassa.[204] Ignorance has called this power Kronos guarded with chains since he bound together the maze of the dense and cloudy and unknown and dark Tartarus. There are born after the image of this (power) Cepheus, Prometheus, Iapetus.[205] (The) power to whom Thalassa is entrusted is masculo-feminine, who traces back the hissing (water) from the twelve mouths of the twelve pipes and after preparing distributes it. (This power) is small and reduces the boisterous restraining rising (of the sea) and seals up the ways of her paths, so that nothing should declare war or suffer change. The Typhonic daughter of this (power) is the faithful guard of all sorts of waters. Her name is Chorzar. Ignorance calls her Poseidôn, after whose likeness came Glaucus, Melicertes, Iö,[206] Nebroë. He that is encircled with the 12-angled pyramid[207] and darkens the gate into the pyramid p. 195. with divers colours and perfects the whole blackness[208]—this one is called Core[209] whose 5 ministers are: first Ou, 2nd Aoai, 3rd Ouô, 4th Ouöab, 5th ... Other faithful stewards there are of his toparchy of day and night who rest in their authority. Ignorance has called them the wandering stars on which hangs perishable birth. Steward of the rising of the wind[210] is Carphasemocheir (and second) Eccabaccara, but ignorance calls these Curetes. (The) third ruler of the winds is Ariel[211] after whose image came Æolus (and) Briares. And ruler of the 12-houred night (is) Soclas[212] whom ignorance has called Osiris. After his likeness there were born Admetus, Medea, Hellen, Aethusa. Ruler of the 12-houred day-time is Euno. He is steward of the rising of the first-blessed[213] and ætherial (goddess) whom ignorance calls Isis. The sign of this (ruler) is the Dog-star[214] after whose image were born Ptolemy son of Arsinoë, Didyme, Cleopatra, Olympias. (The) right hand power of God is she whom p. 196. ignorance calls Rhea, after whose image were born Attis, Mygdon,[215] Oenone. The left-hand power has authority over nurture whom ignorance calls Demeter. Her name is Bena. After the likeness of this (god) were born Celeus, Triptolemus, Misyr,[216] Praxidice. (The) right-hand power has authority over seasons. Ignorance calls this (god) Mena after whose image were born, Bumegas,[217] Ostanes, Hermes Trismegistus, Curites, Zodarion, Petosiris, Berosos, Astrampsychos, Zoroaster. (The) left-hand power of fire. Ignorance calls him Hephæstus after whose image were born Erichthonius, Achilleus, Capaneus, Phæthon, Meleager, Tydeus, Enceladus, Raphael, Suriel,[218] Omphale. Three middle powers suspended in air (are) causes of birth. Ignorance calls them Fates, after whose image were born (the) house of Priam, (the) house of Laius, Ino, Autonoë, Agave, Athamas, Procne (the) Danaids, the Peliades. A masculo-feminine power there is ever childlike, who grows not old, (the) cause of beauty, of pleasure, of prime, of yearning, of desire, whom ignorance calls Eros, after whose image were born Paris, Narcissus, Ganymede, Endymion, p. 197. Tithonus, Icarius, Leda, Amymonê, Thetis, (the) Hesperides, Jason, Leander, Hero.” These are the Proastii up to Aether. For thus he inscribes the book.
15. The heresy of the Peratæ, it has been made easily apparent to all, has been adapted from the (art) of the astrologers with a change of names alone. And their other books include the same method, if any one cared to go through them. For, as I have said, they think the unbegotten and overlying things to be the causes of birth of the begotten, and that our world, which they call that of form, came into being by emanation, and that all those stars together which are beheld in the heaven become the causes of birth in this world, they changing their names as is to be seen from a comparison of the Proastii. And secondly after the same fashion indeed, as they say that the world came into being from the emanation of her[219] on high, thus they say that things here have their birth and death and are governed p. 198. by the emanation from the stars. Since then the astrologers know the Ascendant and Mid-heaven and the Descendant and the Anti-meridian, and as the stars sometimes move differently from the perpetual turning of the universe, and at other times there are other succeedents to the cardinal point and (other) cadents from the cardinal points, (the Peratæ) treating the ordinance of the astrologers as an allegory, picture the cardinal points as it were God and monad and lord of all generation, and the succeedent as the left hand and the cadent the right. When therefore any one reading their writings finds a power spoken of by them as right or left, let him refer to the centre, the succeedent and the cadent, and he will clearly perceive that their whole system of practice has been established on astrological teaching.
16. But they call themselves Peratæ, thinking that nothing which has its foundations in generation can escape the fate determined from birth for the begotten. For if anything, he says, is begotten it also perishes wholly, as it seemed also p. 199. to the Sibyl.[220] But, he says, we alone who know the compulsion of birth and the paths whereby man enters into the world and have been carefully instructed—we alone can pass through[221] and escape destruction. But water, he says, is destruction, and never, he says, did the world perish quicker than by water. But the water which rolls around the Proastii is, they say, Kronos. For such a power, he says, is of the colour of water and this power, that is Kronos, none of those who have been founded in generation can escape. For Kronos is set as a cause over every birth so that it shall be subject to destruction[222] and no birth could occur in which Kronos is not an impediment. This, he says is what the poets say and the gods (themselves) also fear:—
Let earth be witness thereto and wide heaven above
And the water of Styx that flows below.
The greatest of oaths and most terrible to the blessed gods.—