The Refutation of All Heresies

And by the Mother, they allege, were created first the four elements, which, they say, are fire, water, earth, air; and these have been projected as an image of the tetrad above; and reckoning the energies of these— for instance, as hot, cold, moist, dry— they assert that they accurately portray the Ogdoad. And next they compute ten powers thus. (There are, they say,) seven orbicular bodies, which they likewise call heavens. There is next a circle containing these within its compass, and this also they name an eighth heaven: and in addition to these, they affirm the existence of both a sun and moon.

And these being ten in number, they say, are images of the invisible decade that (emanated) from Logos and Zoe. (They affirm,) however, that the dodecade is indicated by what is termed the zodiacal circle. For these twelve zodiacal signs, they say, most evidently shadowed forth the daughter of Anthropos and Ecclesia, namely the Dodecade. And since, he says, the upper heaven has been united from an opposite direction to the revolutionary motion, which is most rapid, of the entire (of the signs); and since (this heaven) within its cavity retards, and by its slowness counterpoises, the velocity of those (signs), so that in thirty years it accomplishes its circuit from sign to sign—they therefore assert that this (heaven) is an image of Horos, who encircles the mother of these, who has thirty names.

And, again, (they affirm) that the moon, which traverses the heaven in thirty days, by reason of (these) days portrays the number of the Aeons. And (they say) that the sun, performing its circuit, and terminating its exact return to its first position in its orbit in twelve months, manifests the dodecade. And also (they say) that the days themselves, involving the measure of twelve hours, constitute a type of the empty dodecade; and that the circumference of the actual zodiacal circle consists of three hundred and sixty degrees, and that each zodiacal sign possesses thirty divisions.

In this way, therefore, even by means of the circle, they maintain that the image is preserved of the connection of the twelve with the thirty. But, moreover, alleging that the earth was divided into twelve regions, and that according to each particular region it receives one power by the latter's being sent down from the heavens, and that it produces children corresponding in likeness unto the power which transmitted (the likeness) by emanation; (for this reason) they assert that earth is a type of the Dodecade above.