Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Their Propator, they say, is known only to him who was born from him, the Only-begotten, that is, Nous; to all the rest he is invisible and incomprehensible. Nous alone, according to them, took delight in beholding the Father and his immense greatness, and rejoiced in sharing the Father's greatness — how vast and how mighty he was, and how he existed without beginning, and was ungraspable, and incomprehensible to sight. [A short stretch of the underlying text is corrupted here and is left untranslated rather than guessed at.] But Sige restrained him, by the will of the Father, because the Father wished to bring all the other Aeons likewise into an understanding and longing to seek after him. And all the rest of the Aeons, in a kind of hushed silence, likewise desired to see the one who had put forth their seed, and to contemplate the root that is without beginning.
But the last and youngest of the Duodecad that had been emitted from Anthropos and Ecclesia, the Aeon Sophia, rushed forward with great eagerness, and suffered a passion apart from the embrace of her consort Theletos. This passion had its origin among those Aeons associated with Nous and Aletheia, but overflowed into this Aeon, Sophia, and threw her into disorder — under the pretext of love, but in truth through rashness, because she had not, like Nous, entered into communion with the perfect Father. The passion was this: a longing to search out the Father, for she wished, as they say, to comprehend his greatness. And when she could not, because she was attempting a thing impossible, she was thrown into great anguish because of the vastness of the depth, and because the Father is beyond investigation, and because of the love she bore toward him; for as she stretched herself ever forward toward him, she would in the end, they say, have been absorbed by his sweetness and dissolved into the universal substance, had she not met with the power that strengthens and preserves all things outside the ineffable greatness. This power they call Horos (Limit); by whom she was held back and strengthened, and, scarcely returning into herself, and now convinced that the Father is incomprehensible, she laid aside her original intent, together with the passion that had come upon her out of that stupefied amazement. Some of them relate this passion and return of Sophia after the manner of a myth: that having attempted a thing impossible and incomprehensible, she brought forth a shapeless substance, of the kind a female by nature would bring forth; and looking upon it, she was first seized with grief, on account of the incompleteness of what had been generated; then with fear, lest this very incompleteness should be the end of it; then with bewilderment and perplexity — that is, confusion — as she sought a way out and a means of hiding what had been born. Caught up in these passions, she underwent a turning, and attempted to return to the Father; and having ventured this for some time, she at last gave up and became a suppliant before the Father. And along with her the rest of the Aeons also made supplication, Nous above all. From this, they say, matter first took its beginning — out of ignorance, and grief, and fear, and bewilderment.
The Father then, over and above this, sent forth the aforesaid Horos through the Only-begotten, in his own image, without a consort, male-female. [The transmitted text here is corrupt for a few words and is left untranslated rather than supplied by conjecture.] This Horos they also call Stauros (Cross), and Lytrotes (Redeemer), and Carpistes (Emancipator), and Horothetes (Boundary-setter), and Metagogeus (Leader-back). By this Horos, they say, Sophia was purified and strengthened, and restored to her consort. For once her intention, together with the passion attached to it, had been separated from her, she herself remained within the Pleroma; but her longing, together with its passion, was set apart by Horos as a spiritual substance — a kind of natural impulse belonging to an Aeon, yet without form or shape, since it had grasped nothing. And for this reason they call its fruit weak and feminine. And after this had been separated outside the Pleroma of the Aeons, and her mother restored to her own conjugal union, the Only-begotten again put forth another pair, according to the providence of the Father — Christ and the Holy Spirit — by whom, they say, the Aeons were brought to completion. For Christ taught them the nature of conjugal union, and that, having come to know the comprehension of the Unbegotten, they were capable of it; and he also made known to them the knowledge of the Father — that he is beyond grasp and beyond comprehension, and can be neither seen nor heard except through the Only-begotten alone. And the cause of the eternal continuance of all these is the incomprehensibility of the Father, while the cause of their generation and shaping is the comprehensible nature of him who is the Son. Such, then, was the work that Christ, now emitted, wrought within them.
The Holy Spirit, in turn, taught them, all now made equal, to render thanks, and brought in true rest. And thus, they say, the Aeons, having become alike in form and in disposition, all became Nous and Logos, and all Anthropos and Christ; and the female Aeons likewise all became Aletheia, and Zoe, and Spirit, and Ecclesia. All things being thus made firm and brought to perfect rest, they say the Aeons, with great joy, sang hymns to the Propator, sharing in his great exultation. And out of gratitude for this benefit, with one will and mind, the whole Pleroma of the Aeons, with the consent of Christ and the Spirit, each Aeon contributing what was best and most flourishing within itself, brought these together fittingly and joined them diligently into one, and sent forth an offering — a most perfect adornment, in the honor and glory of Bythos, a star of the Pleroma, a perfect fruit — Jesus, who is also called Savior, and Christ, and Logos after his father's name, and 'All Things,' since he came from all. And as his attendants, in their honor, they say Angels of the same kind were emitted along with him.