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Against Heresies
2.
There are also some who maintain that he also produced Christ as his own proper son, but of an animal nature, and that mention was 1 made of him by the prophets. This Christ passed through Mary 2 just as water flows through a tube; and there descended upon him in the form of a dove at the time of his baptism, that Saviour who belonged to the Pleroma, and was formed by the combined efforts of all its inhabitants. In him there existed also that spiritual seed which proceeded from Achamoth. They hold, accordingly, that our Lord, while preserving the type of the first-begotten and primary tetrad, was compounded of these four substances,--of that which is spiritual, in so far as He was from Achamoth; of that which is animal, as being from the Demiurge by a special dispensation, inasmuch as He was formed [corporeally] with unspeakable skill; and of the Saviour, as respects that dove which descended upon Him. He also continued free from all suffering, since indeed it was not possible that He should suffer who was at once incomprehensible and invisible. And for this reason the Spirit of Christ, who had been placed within Him, was taken away when He was brought before Pilate. They maintain, further, that not even the seed which He had received from the mother [Achamoth] was subject to suffering; for it, too, was impassible, as being spiritual, and invisible even to the Demiurge himself. It follows, then, according to them, that the animal Christ, and that which had been formed mysteriously by a special dispensation, underwent suffering, that the mother might exhibit through him a type of the Christ above, namely, of him who extended himself through Stauros, 3 and imparted to Achamoth shape, so far as substance was concerned. For they declare that all these transactions were counterparts of what took place above.
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A Syriac fragment here reads, "He spake by the prophets through him." ↩
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"Thus," says Harvey, "we may trace back to the Gnostic period the Apollinarian error, closely allied to the Docetic, that the body of Christ was not derived from the blessed Virgin, but that it was of heavenly substance, and was only brought forth into the world through her instrumentality." ↩
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By thus extending himself through Stauros, who bounded the Pleroma, the Christ above became the type of the Christ below, who was extended upon the cross. ↩
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Gegen die Häresien (BKV)
2.
Manche jedoch sagen, er habe Christum als seinen eigenen, wenn schon seelischen Sohn hervorgebracht, von diesem redete er durch die Propheten. Er ging durch Maria hindurch, wie Wasser durch die Rinne läuft, auf ihn ist bei der Taufe der von dem Pleroma des Alls abstammende Heiland in Gestalt einer Taube hinabgestiegen, wie in ihm auch der geistige Same der Achamoth gewesen ist. Aus folgenden vier Dingen also soll unser Heiland zusammengesetzt sein, indem er die Form der ursprünglichen ersten Vierheit beibehielt: aus dem Geistigen, das aus der Achamoth stammte, aus dem Seelischen von dem Demiurgen, aus der unsagbar kunstvoll hergerichteten Wohnstätte und aus dem in Gestalt einer Taube auf ihn herabgestiegenen Heiland. Leidensunfähig aber war er und konnte nicht leiden, da er unbesiegbar und unsichtbar war. Darum hat sich, als er zu Pilatus geführt wurde, der ihm eingepflanzte Geist Christi zurückgezogen. Ebensowenig hat auch der von der Mutter stammende Same gelitten, da er als geistiges und selbst für den Demiurgen unsichtbares Wesen nicht leiden konnte. So litt denn nur der seelische Christus und der aus der Heilsordnung geheimnisvoll zubereitete, damit in ihm die Mutter das Bild jenes oberen Christus darstellte, die sich bis zum Kreuze ausdehnte und die Achamoth nach seiner Wesenheit gestaltete. Denn die irdischen Vorgänge sind nur die Abbilder jener Ereignisse.