account," he says, "I descended. And this is the 'lost sheep'
written of in the Gospel." Moreover, he left to his followers an
image, his own presumably, and they worship it under the form of
Zeus; and he left another in like manner of Helen in the guise of
Athena, and his dupes worship them.

4. And he enjoined mysteries of obscenity and--to set it forth more
seriously--of the sheddings of bodies, _emissionum virorom,
feminarum menstruorum_, and that they should be gathered up for
mysteries in a most filthy collection; that these were the
mysteries of life, and of the most perfect Gnôsis--a practice which
anyone who has understanding from God would most naturally consider
to be most filthy conduct and death rather than life. And he
supposes names for the Dominions and Principalities, and says there
are different heavens, and sets forth Powers for each firmament and
heaven, and tricks them out with barbarous names, and says that no
man can be saved in any other fashion than by learning this
mystagogy, and how to offer such sacrifices to the Universal Father
through these Dominions and Principalities. And he says that this
world (aeon) was constructed defectively by Dominions and
Principalities of evil. And he considers that corruption and
destruction are of the flesh alone, but that there is a
purification of souls and that, only if they are established in
initiation by means of his misleading Gnôsis. This is the beginning
of the so-called Gnostics. And he pretended that the Law was not of
God, but of the left-hand Power, and that the Prophets were not
from the Good God but from this or the other Power. And he lays it
down for each of them as he pleases: the Law was of one, David of
another, Isaiah of another, Ezekiel again of another, and ascribes
each of the Prophets to some one Dominion. And all of them were