9. Monoimus.
17. But the followers of Monoimus the Arab say that p. 499. the principle of the All is a First Man[51] and Son of Man, and that the things which have come to pass as Moses says, came into being not by the First Man but by the Son of Man, and not from the whole, but from part of him. And that the Son of Man is Iota, which is the Decad, a dominant number wherein is the substance of all number, whereby every number subsists, and is the birth of the All [viz.] Fire, Air, Water [and] Earth. But this being so, Iota is one and one tittle, a perfect thing from the Perfect, a tittle flowing from on high, having within itself whatever also has the Man the Father of the Son of Man. Therefore [Monoimus] says that the world of Moses came into being in six days, that is, in six powers, from which the cosmos came forth from the one tittle. For cubes and octahedrons and pyramids and all the equal-sided figures like these, whence are made up Fire, Air, Water [and] Earth, have came into being from the numbers left behind in that simple tittle of the Iota which is the Son of Man. When therefore, he says, Moses speaks of a rod turning p. 500. towards Egypt he is attributing allegorically the woes[52] of the world to the Iota, nor does he figure more than the ten woes. But if, he says, you wish to understand the All, enquire within thyself who it is who says, “My soul, my flesh, my mind,”[53] and who within thee makes each thing his own as another does to him. Understand that this is a perfect thing from the Perfect who considers all the so-called non-existent and all the existent as peculiar to himself.[54] This then is what Monoimus thinks.
10. Tatian.
18. But Tatian, like Valentinus and the others, says that there are certain unseen Aeons, by one of whom below the cosmos and the things that are, were fashioned. And he practises a very cynical mode of life, and hardly differs from Marcion in his blasphemies and his rules about marriage.[55]
p. 501.
11. Marcion.[56]
19. Marcion the Pontian, and Cerdo his teacher, also determined that there are three principles of the All, a Good One, a Just One, and Matter. But certain disciples of theirs add to this, saying that there are a Good One, a Just One, a Wicked One, and Matter. But all [agree] that the Good One created nothing wholly;[57] but they say that the Just One, whom some name the Wicked One, but others merely the Just, made all things out of the underlying Matter. For he made them not well but absurdly.[58] For things must need be like their creator. Wherefore they make use of the parable in the Gospels, saying, “A good tree cannot make evil fruits,”[59] and so on, declaring that in this it is said that things were devised wickedly by [the Just One]. And he says that Christ is the son of the Good One and was sent for the salvation of souls. Whom he calls [the] inner man, saying that He appeared as a man, p. 502. but was not man, and as incarnate, but was not incarnate, and was manifested in appearance [only], but underwent neither birth nor suffering, but seemed [to do so]. And [Marcion] does not wish that [the] flesh shall rise again. And, saying that marriage is destruction, he leads his disciples to a very Cynical life, thinking thereby to vex the Demiurge by abstaining from the things brought into being or laid down by him.[60]