Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 5.djvu/155

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1. The remarks, therefore, which I made a little while ago are suitable in answer to those who assert that this world was formed outside of the Pleroma, or under a "good God;" and such persons, with the Father they speak of, will be quite cut off from that which is outside the Pleroma, in which, at the same time, it is necessary that they should finally rest. In answer to those, again, who maintain that this world was formed by certain other beings within that territory which is contained by the Father, all those points which have now been noticed will present themselves [as exhibiting their] absurdities and incoherencies; and they will be compelled either to acknowledge all those things which are within the Father, lucid, full, and energetic, or to accuse the light of the Father as if He could not illuminate all things; or, as a portion of their Pleroma [is so described], the whole of it must be confessed to be void, chaotic, and full of darkness. And they accuse all other created things as if these were merely temporal, or [at the best], if eternal, yet material. But these (the Æons) ought to be regarded as