3.
How then could the Enthymesis separately conceive passions, which themselves also were her affections? For affection is necessarily connected with an individual: it cannot come into being or exist apart by itself. This opinion [of theirs], however, is not only untenable, but also opposed to that which was spoken by our Lord: "Seek, and ye shall find." 1 For the Lord renders His disciples perfect by their seeking after and finding the Father; but that Christ of theirs, who is above, has rendered them perfect, by the fact that He has commanded the Aeons not to seek after the Father, persuading them that, though they should labour hard, they would not find Him. And they 2 declare that they themselves are perfect, by the fact that they maintain they have found their Bythus; while the Aeons [have been made perfect] through means of this, that He is unsearchable who was inquired after by them.
