18. Since the threefold essence is, as he says, genus, species and atom, and we have granted[13] “animal” to be genus, and man to be species already differentiated from the multitude of animals, but at the same time commingled with them and not yet transformed into a species of substantial being,[14]—I, when I give form to the man taken apart from the genus, call him by the name of Socrates p. 339. or of Diogenes or any one of the many names (there are), and when I (thus) restrict with a name the man who from genus has become species, I call such being an individual.[15] For the genus is divided into species and the species into an atom; but the atom when restricted by a name cannot by its nature be divided into anything else, as we have divided each of the things aforesaid.
This Aristotle calls essence in its first, chief, and strictest sense, nor is it said of any subject nor as existing in any subject.[16] But he speaks of the subject as if it were genus when he said “animal” of all the animals severally ranged under it, such as an ox, a horse, and the rest, describing them by a common name. For it is true to say that man is an animal, and a horse is an animal and an ox is an animal and all the rest. This is subjective, the one (name) being likewise capable of being said of many p. 340. and different species.[17] For neither a horse nor an ox differs from man quâ animal; for the definition of animal fits all the aforesaid animals alike. For what is an animal? If we define it, a common definition will include all the animals. For an animal is a living,[18] feeling being, such as a man, a horse and all the rest. But, “in the Subject,” he says, is that which exists in anything, not as part of it, but as being incapable of existing apart from that wherein it is, (and is) each[19] of the accidents of being. The which is called Quality because by it we say what certain things are, as, for instance, white, green, black, just, unjust, prudent and such like. But none of these (qualities) can come into being by itself, but must needs be in[20] something. But, if neither the “animal,” which is the word I use for all living beings taken severally, nor the “accidents” which are found to occur in all of them, can come into being of themselves, then from those things which do not exist, the individual things[21] are developed and the triply-divided essence is not compounded[22] from other things. Hence Being[23] so called in its first and chiefest and strictest sense, p. 341. exists according to Aristotle from those things which do not exist.[24]
19. About Being[25] then enough has been said. But Being is called not only genus, species and individual; but also matter, form and privation. But there is no difference among these while the division stands. And Being being such as it is, the ordering of the cosmos came about automatically in the same way. The cosmos is according to Aristotle divided into many [and different] parts; [and] the part of the cosmos which exists from the earth as far as the moon is without providence or governance and has its rise only in its own nature. But that which is beyond the moon, is ordered with all order and providence and is (so) governed up to the surface of heaven. But the (same) surface is a certain fifth essence renewed from all the elements of nature wherefrom the cosmos is made up, and this is Aristotle’s “Quintessence,” being as it were a hypercosmic essence. And his system of philosophy is p. 342. divided so as to agree with the division of the cosmos. For there is by him a treatise on physics called Acroasis, wherein he has treated of the doings of Nature, not of Providence, from the Earth to the Moon. And there is also his Metaphysics, another special work thus entitled, concerning the things which take place beyond the Moon. And there is also his work On the Quintessence, wherein he theologizes.[26] Like this also is the division of the universals as they are defined by type in Aristotle’s philosophy. But his work On the Soul is puzzling; for it would be impossible in three whole books to say what Aristotle thinks about the soul. For what he gives as the definition of the soul is easy to say; but what is explained by the definition is hard to find. For, he says, the soul is an entelechy of the physical organism. What this is would need many words and great enquiry. But the God who is the cause of all these fair beings p. 343. is one, even to one speculating for a very long time, more difficult to be known than is the soul. Yet the definition which Aristotle gives of God, is not hard to be known, but impossible to be understood. For He, he says, is a conception of conception which is altogether non-existent. But the cosmos is according to Aristotle imperishable and eternal; for it contains nothing faulty and is governed by Nature and Providence. And Aristotle has not only put forth books on Nature and the Cosmos and Providence and God,[27] but there is also a certain treatise by him on ethics which is called The Ethical Books wherein he builds up a good ethics for his hearers out of a poor one. If, then, Basilides be found not only potentially but in the very words and names to have transferred the doctrines of Aristotle to our evangelical and soul-saving teaching, what remains but by restoring these extraneous matters to their (proper) authors to prove to Basilides’ disciples that, as they are heathenish, Christ will profit them nothing?
p. 344. 20. Now Basilides and Isidore, Basilides’ true son and disciple, say that Matthias recounted to them secret[28] discourses which he had heard from the Saviour in private teaching.[29] We see then how plainly Basilides together with Isidore and their whole band belie not only Matthias but also the Saviour. There was, he says, was, I do not say that this existed, but I speak thus to signify what I wish to indicate. I say then that nothing at all existed. For, says he, that which is named is plainly not ineffable; for at any rate we call one thing ineffable, but another not ineffable. For truly that which is not even ineffable is not named ineffable, but is, he says, above every name which is named. For neither are there names enough for the cosmos, he says, so diverse is it, but there is a lack of them. Nor do p. 345. I undertake, says he, to find proper names for everything; but one must silently understand in the mind not their names, but the properties of the things named. For identity of names has made confusion and error concerning things[30] among those who hear them. And they who first made this appropriation and theft from the Peripatetic lead astray the folly of those who herd with them. For Aristotle who was born many generations earlier than Basilides, was the first to set forth in the Categories a system of homonyms which these men expound as their own and as a novelty [derived] from the secret discourses of Matthias.
21. When nothing [existed], neither matter, nor essence, nor the simple nor the compound, nor [that which is conceived by the mind] nor that which cannot be [so] conceived, [nor that which is perceived by the senses][31] nor that which cannot be [so] perceived, nor man, nor angel, nor God, nor generally any of the things which are named or apprehended by sensation, or of things[32] which can be p. 346. conceived by the mind but can be thus and even more minutely described by all:—(then) [the] God-who-was-Not—whom Aristotle calls Concept of Concept, but (Basilides) Him-who-is-Not, without conception, perception, counsel, choice, passion or desire willed to create a cosmos. But I say (only) for the sake of clearness, says he, that He willed. I signify that he did this without will or conception or perception; and [the] cosmos was not that which later became established in its expanse and diversity,[33] but a Seed of a cosmos. And the Seed of the cosmos contained all things within itself, as the grain of mustard (seed) collects into the smallest space and contains within itself all things at once:—the roots, stem, branches and the numberless leaves, with the seeds begotten by the plant, and often again those grown by many other plants. Thus the God-who-was-Not made the cosmos from things which were not,[34] casting p. 347. down and planting[35] a certain single seed containing within itself the whole seed-mass[36] of the cosmos. But in order that I may make clearer what these (men) say, it was even as an egg of some gorgeous and parti-coloured bird such as a peacock of some other yet more variegated and many-coloured, contains within it, though one, many patterns[37] of multiform and many-coloured and diversely-constructed beings[38]—so, says he, the non-existent seed of the cosmos cast down by the God-who-was-Not contained (a Seed-mass) at once multiform and (the source) of many beings.[39]
22. All things, then, which are to be described, and those which not having yet been discovered must be left out of the account, were destined to be fitted for the cosmos which was to come into being at the proper time by the help given to it by such and so great a God, whose quality[40] the creature can neither conceive nor define. And these things existed stored within the seed, as, in a new-born p. 348. child, we see teeth and the power of fatherhood and brains accrue later; and those things which belong to the man but do not at first exist, evolve gradually out of the child. For it would be impossible to say that any projection by the God-who-was-Not became something non-existent,—since Basilides entirely shuns and has in horror [the notion of] substances of things begotten [arising] by way of projection.[41] For what, says he, is the need of projection or of any substructure of matter in order that God may fashion a cosmos as the spider makes webs, or mortal man takes brass or wood or some other portion of matter to work with?).—But He spoke, says he, and it came to pass; and this is, as these [heretics] say, what Moses spake:—“Let there be light and there was light.”[42] Whence, says he, came the light? From nothing. For it is not written says he, whence it came, but only that it came forth from the word of the speaker. For the speaker, says he, was not, nor did that which was spoken [formerly] exist. The seed of the cosmos, he says, came into being from non-existent things [and this seed is] the word which was spoken: “Let there be light.” And this, says he, is the saying in the Gospels: “This is p. 349. the true light which lighteneth every man who cometh into the world.”[43] It takes its beginnings[44] from that seed and gives light. This is the seed which contains within itself all the Seed-Mass which Aristotle says is the genus divided into boundless species, since we divide from the non-existent animal ox, horse [and] man. Further, of the underlying cosmic seed, they say, “whatever I may say came into being after this, seek not to know whence it came.” For it contained all seeds stored and shut up within itself, as it were things which were not, but which were foreordained to exist by the God-who-was-Not.
Let us see then what they say came into being in the first, second or third place from the cosmic seed. There existed (Basilides) says within the seed itself, a Sonhood, threefold throughout, of the same essence[45] with the God-who-was-Not and begotten of the things that were not. Of this triple divided Sonhood, one part was subtle, (one coarse) and one wanting purification. Now the subtle (part) p. 350. straightway and as it became the first emission of the seed by the One-who-was-Not, escaped and ascended and went on high from below with the speed described by the poet—
“like wing or thought,”[46]
and came, he says, before the One-who-was-Not. For towards him every nature strains on account of his exceeding beauty and bloom,[47] but each differently. But the coarser part still remaining in the seed, although resembling the other,[48] could not go on high, for it lacked the fineness of division which the ascending Sonhood had of itself, and was (therefore) left behind. Then the coarser Sonhood wings itself with some such wing as that wherewith Plato, Aristotle’s teacher, equips the soul in the Phaedrus,[49] and Basilides calls the same not a wing but Holy Spirit, clothed wherewith the Sonhood both gives and receives benefit. It gives it because a bird’s wing taken by itself and severed from the bird would neither become uplifted nor high in p. 351. air, nor would the bird be uplifted and high in air if deprived of the wing. This then is the relation which the Sonhood bears to the Spirit and the Spirit to the Sonhood. For the Sonhood borne aloft by the Spirit as by a wing bears aloft the wing, (that is the Spirit) and draws nigh to the subtler Sonhood and to the God-who-was-Not and fashions all things from the non-existent. But [the Spirit] cannot abide with the Sonhood for it is not of the same essence,[50] nor has it the same nature as the Sonhood. But just as dry and pure air is naturally fatal to fishes, so naturally to the Holy Spirit was that place, more ineffable than the ineffable ones and higher than all names, which is the seat at once of the God-who-was-Not and of the [first] Sonhood. Therefore the Sonhood left the Spirit near that blessed place which cannot be conceived nor characterized[51] by any speech, [yet] not altogether alone nor [completely] severed from the Sonhood. For just as when a sweet perfume is poured into a jar, even if the jar is carefully emptied a certain fragrance of the perfume still remains and is left behind, and although p. 352. the perfume be removed from the jar, the jar retains the fragrance, but not the perfume—so the Holy Spirit remained bereft of and severed from the Sonhood. And this is the saying: “As the perfume on Aaron’s head ran down to his beard.”[52] This is the savour carried down by the Holy Spirit from on high into the Formlessness[53] and Space of this world of ours, whence the Sonhood first went on high as on the wings of an eagle and borne on his loins. For all things, he says, strain upward from below, from the worse to the better. But there is thus nothing of those things which are among the better which is immovable, so that it cannot come below. But the third Sonhood, he says, which is in need of purification, remains in the great heap of the Seed-mass giving and receiving benefits. And in what manner it does this, we shall see later in the fitting place.[54]
p. 353. 23. Now when the first and second ascensions of the Sonhood[55] had come to pass, and the Holy Spirit remained by itself in the way described, being set midway between the hypercosmic firmaments and the cosmos—for Basilides divides the things that are into two first made and primary divisions, one of which is called by him an ordered world,[56] and the other hypercosmic things—and between these two [he places] the Boundary Spirit,[57] which same is at once Holy and holds abiding in it the savour of the Sonhood, it being the firmament which is above the heaven.[58] [When these ascensions had taken place], there escaped from and was engendered from the cosmical seed and the Seed-mass, the Great Ruler, the head of the cosmos, a certain beauty and greatness and power which cannot be spoken.[59] For he is, says [Basilides], more ineffable than the ineffable ones, mightier than the mighty, and better than all the fair ones you can describe. He, when engendered, burst through, soared aloft, and was borne right up on high as far as the firmament, but stayed there thinking that the firmament was the end of all ascension p. 354. and uplifting and not imagining that there was anything at all beyond this. And he became wiser, mightier, more eminent, and more luminous and everything which you can describe as excelling in beauty all the other cosmic things which lay before him, save only the Sonhood left behind in the Seed-mass. For he knew not that [this Sonhood] was wiser and mightier and better than he. Therefore he deemed himself Lord and King[60] and wise architect, and set about the creation in detail[61] of the ordered world. And in the first place he did not think it meet for him to be alone, but created for himself and engendered from the things which lay below him a Son much better and wiser than himself. For all this the God-who-was-Not had foreordained when he let fall the Seed-mass. When, therefore, [the Great Ruler] beheld his Son, he wondered, and was filled with love and astounded: for so [splendid] did the beauty of the son appear to the Great Ruler. And the Ruler seated him at his right hand. This is what is called by Basilides the Ogdoad where sits the Great Ruler. Then the Great Wise Demiurge fashioned the whole of the p. 355. heavenly, that is, the aethereal creation. But the Son begotten by him set it working and established it, being much wiser than the Demiurge himself.[62]