{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/001/0010753.htm","path":"chr/ecf/001/0010753.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/001/0010753.htm","text":"1. Moreover, their ignorance comes out in a clear light with respect to the case of that woman who, suffering from an issue of blood, touched the hem of the Lord\u2019s garment, and so was made whole; for they maintain that through her was shown forth that twelfth power who suffered passion, and flowed out towards immensity, that is, the twelfth \u00c6on. [This ignorance of theirs appears] first, because, as I have shown, according to their own system, that was not the twelfth \u00c6on. But even granting them this point [in the meantime], there being twelve \u00c6ons, eleven of these are said to have continued impassible, while the twelfth suffered passion; but the woman, on the other hand, being healed in the twelfth year, it is manifest that she had continued to suffer during eleven years, and was healed in the twelfth. If indeed they were to say that eleven \u00c6ons were involved in passion, but the twelfth one was healed, it would then be a plausible thing to say that the woman was a type of these. But since she suffered during eleven years, and [all that time] obtained no cure, but was healed in the twelfth year, in what way can she be a type of the twelfth of the \u00c6ons, eleven of whom, [according to hypothesis,] did not suffer at all, but the twelfth alone participated in suffering? For a type and emblem is, no doubt, sometimes diverse from the truth [signified] as to matter and substance; but it ought, as to the general form and features, to maintain p. 393 a likeness [to what is typified], and in this way to shadow forth by means of things present those which are yet to come.\n2. And not only in the case of this woman have the years of her infirmity (which they affirm to fit in with their figment) been mentioned, but, lo! another woman was also healed, after suffering in like manner for eighteen years; concerning whom the Lord said, \u201cAnd ought not this daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound during eighteen years, to be set free on the Sabbath-day?\u201d 3148 If, then, the former was a type of the twelfth \u00c6on that suffered, the latter should also be a type of the eighteenth \u00c6on in suffering. But they cannot maintain this; otherwise their primary and original Ogdoad will be included in the number of \u00c6ons who suffered together. Moreover, there was also a certain other person 3149 healed by the Lord, after he had suffered for eight-and-thirty years: they ought therefore to affirm that the \u00c6on who occupies the thirty-eighth place suffered. For if they assert that the things which were done by the Lord were types of what took place in the Pleroma, the type ought to be preserved throughout. But they can neither adapt to their fictitious system the case of her who was cured after eighteen years, nor of him who was cured after thirty-eight years. Now, it is in every way absurd and inconsistent to declare that the Saviour preserved the type in certain cases, while He did not do so in others. The type of the woman, therefore, [with the issue of blood] is shown to have no analogy to their system of \u00c6ons. 3150\nThe text of this sentence is very uncertain. We follow Massuet\u2019s reading, \u201cnegotio \u00c6onum,\u201d in preference to that suggested by Harvey.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I: IREN\u00c6US: Chapter XXIII.\u2014The woman who...","type":"page"}