11. But, to be brief, since the fire is such according to Simon, and all things are seen and unseen as they are heard and unheard, numbered and unnumbered, in the Great Announcement he calls a perfect intellectual[26] every one of those (beings) which can be boundlessly conceived by the mind in a boundless way[27] and can speak and think and act, as says Empedocles:—
For earth by earth we see, and water by water
And (divine) æther by æther, yet destroying fire by fire,
And (love) by love, and strife in gloomy strife.—
(Karsten, v. 321.)
12. For, he says, he considered all the parts of the fire which are invisible to have sense and a share of mind.[28] p. 250. Therefore the cosmos, he says, came into being begotten by the unbegotten fire. But it began to be, he says, after this fashion:—He who was produced from the beginning from that fire took six roots, the first ones of the principle of generation.[29] And he says that the roots came from the fire in pairs, which roots he calls Mind and Thought, Voice and Name, Reasoning and Passion,[30] but that the whole of the Boundless Power together is in these six roots potentially, but not actively. The which Boundless Power he says is He who Stood, Stands, and will Stand. Who if he be made into a complete image (of the fire) will be in substance, power, greatness, and effect one and the same with that Unbegotten and Boundless Power, and lacking nothing possessed by that unbegotten and unchanging and infinite power. But if he remains potentially only in the six powers and is not made into a complete image (of the fire), he is done away with and is lost like as the capacity for grammar or geometry in man’s soul. For power taking p. 251. to itself skill becomes a light of the things which are: but if it does not take unto itself (skill) it is unskilfulness and darkness and as if it were not, it perishes[31] with the man at his death.
13. But of these six powers and the seventh which is with the six, he calls the first pair, (to wit) Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth. And (he says) that the masculine (partner) looks down from on high upon and takes thought for his spouse and that the Earth below receives the intellectual fruits proper to her brought down from Heaven to Earth. Wherefore, he says, the Logos beholding often the things born from Nous and Epinoia, that is from Heaven and Earth, says: “Hear, O Heaven, and give ear, O Earth, for the Lord has spoken. I have begotten and raised up sons, but they have disregarded me.”[32] He who thus speaks, he says, is the Seventh Power who Stood, Stands and will Stand. For he is the cause of those fair things which Moses praised and said that p. 252. they were very good. And Phone and Onoma are the Sun and Moon, and Logismos and Enthymesis Air and Water. But with all these is mingled and compounded, as I have said, the great and Boundless Power, He who has Stood.[33]
14. Since, therefore, Moses spake: “In six days God created Heaven and Earth and the seventh day he rested from all his works,”[34] Simon after re-arranging the passage, makes himself out a god. When then they say that three days passed before the Sun and Moon existed,[35] they shadow forth Nous and Epinoia and the Seventh Power, the Boundless One. For these three powers were born before all the others. When they say: “Before all the Aeons He has begotten me,”[36] (Simon) says that this was spoken of the Seventh Power. But the same Seventh Power, which was a power existing in the Boundless Power which was begotten before all the Aeons, this is, he says, the Seventh Power of whom Moses said: “And the Spirit of God was borne above the water,”[37] that is, he says, the spirit containing p. 253. all things within itself, an image of the Boundless Power, of whom Simon says “image of the imperishable form which alone orders all things.” For that power which was borne above the water having come into being, he says, from the imperishable form, alone orders all things. Now when some such and like preparations of the cosmos had come to pass, God, he says, moulded[38] man, taking dust from the earth. But he fashioned him not simple but twofold[39] according to image and resemblance. But the spirit which was borne above the water is an image, which spirit if it is not made a complete likeness,[40] perishes with the world, as it abides only potentially and does not exist in activity. This, he says, is the saying, “Lest ye be judged with the world.”[41] But if it be made a complete likeness and is born from an Indivisible Point as it is written in the Announcement, the small will become great. But it will be great in the Boundless and Unchanging Aeon, being born no more.
How then and in what manner, he says, did God form man in Paradise? For this is his opinion. Let, he says, Paradise be the womb, and that this is true the Scripture teaches when it says: “I am he who fashioned thee in thy mother’s womb.”[42] For this also he wishes to be thus p. 254. written. Moses, he says, speaking in allegory, calls Paradise the womb if we are to believe the word. But if God fashions man in the womb of his mother, that is, in Paradise, as I have said, let Paradise be the womb and Edem the placenta: “And a river went forth from Edem and watered Paradise”[43] (this is) the navel-string. The navel-string, he says, separates into four heads. For on each side of the navel are set two arteries, conduits of breath, and two veins, conduits of blood. But when he says, the navel-string goes forth from the placenta it takes root in the infant by the epigastrium which all men commonly call the navel. And the two veins it is through which flows and is borne from Edem (the placenta) the blood to the so-called gates of the liver whence the child is fed. But the arteries as we have said, are the conduits of the breath[44] which pass behind on either side of the bladder round the pelvis and make connection with the great artery by the spine called the aorta, and thus through the ventricles the breath flows upon the heart and causes p. 255. movement of the embryo. For the embryo in course of formation in Paradise neither takes food by the mouth, nor breathes through the nostrils. For, as it exists amid waters, death is at its feet if it should breathe. For it would then draw in the waters and die. But it is girt about almost wholly by the envelope called the amnion and is fed through the navel, and through the aorta which is by the spine, it receives, as I have said[45] the substance of the breath.
15. Therefore, he says, the river flowing forth from Edem separates into four heads (or) four conduits, that is, into the child’s four senses, sight, smell, taste, and touch. For the infant while being formed in Paradise has these senses only. This, he says, is the Law which Moses laid down; and agreeably with that same Law each of the Books is written, as their titles clearly show. The first book (is) Genesis (and) the title of the book, he says, suffices for the knowledge of the universals. For, he says, this is genesis, that is sight into which one of the sections of the river separates; p. 256. for the world is seen by sight. The title of the second book is Exodus. For that which is born after crossing the Red Sea comes into the Desert—he calls the blood, he says, the Red Sea—and tastes bitter water. For bitter, he says, is the water which comes after the Red Sea, which (water) is the way of knowledge of life pursued through painful and bitter things. But when changed by Moses, that is by the Logos, that bitter (water) becomes sweet. And that this is so, can be known by all in common in the saying of the poets:—