Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
32. But if they say that the twelve apostles are the type of that sole emission of twelve Aeons which Man, together with Church, put forth, then let the remaining ten Aeons -- who, as they say, were put forth by Word and Life -- also have their type in ten other apostles. For it is unreasonable that the younger Aeons, and therefore the lesser, should be shown forth by the Saviour through his choosing of the apostles, while the older ones among them, and therefore the better, should not likewise be prefigured beforehand -- since the Saviour (if indeed he chose the apostles for the purpose of showing forth through them the Aeons who are in the Pleroma) could just as well have chosen ten other apostles besides -- and before these, eight others too, so as to show forth that principal and first Ogdoad -- by making the number of apostles into a type. Nor does the number seventy fit either: beyond the twelve apostles, our Lord is discovered to have dispatched seventy further disciples ahead of himself; and seventy can be the type neither of the number eight, nor of ten, nor of thirty. What reason is there, then, that the lesser Aeons should be prefigured, while those from whom these very ones proceeded should not be prefigured at all? And if the twelve apostles were chosen for this reason, that through them the number of the twelve Aeons might be signified, then the seventy ought to have been chosen as a type of seventy Aeons -- and they should no longer say the Aeons number thirty, but rather say there are eighty-two. For if it is for the purpose of prefiguring those who are in the Pleroma that he makes his choice of apostles, he would never have made the choice for some and not for others; rather, through all the apostles together he would have tried to preserve the image and show forth the type of those who are in the Pleroma. Nor should Paul be passed over in silence either; rather they must be compelled to state in the type of which Aeon the Apostle has come down to our knowledge -- unless it is perhaps of that composite Saviour who is constituted by a gathering-together of them all, and whom they also call 'All,' because he is made up of all of them. Of him the poet Hesiod too spoke splendidly, naming her Pandora (that is, the gift of All), because the best gift from each of them all had been bestowed upon her. And in this the reasoning runs thus: Hermes (as it is expressed in the Greek tongue -- to render this same thing in Latin: words of deceit and seduction, and cunning, insinuating ways, he implanted in their senses) -- did this to seduce foolish men, that they might believe their fictions. For their Mother -- namely Leto -- covertly incited them (hence her very name Leto, drawn from the sense of the Greek term, since she covertly incites men), without the Demiurge's knowledge, to speak profound and ineffable mysteries into ears eager to hear them. And it is not only through Hesiod that their mother has thus been made to speak of the mystery, but also, very cleverly, through the lyric poet Pindar, so as to conceal it from the Demiurge in the story of Pelops -- whose flesh was divided into parts by his father, and gathered together by all the gods, and brought and compacted again -- signifying Pandora in this manner: from which fable these men too, moved by the same spirit, speak in the same terms, being of the same kind and spirit as those poets.