{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030540.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030540.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030540.htm","text":"Chapter XXV.\u2014An Extravagant Way of Accounting for the Communication of the Spiritual Nature to Man. It Was Furtively Managed by Achamoth, Through the Unconscious Agency of Her Son.\nIn Achamoth, moreover, there was inherent a certain property of a spiritual germ, of her mother Sophia\u2019s substance; and Achamoth herself had carefully severed off (the same quality), and implanted it in her son the Demiurge, although he was actually unconscious of it. It is for you to imagine 6846 the industry of this clandestine arrangement. For to this end had she deposited and concealed (this germ), that, whenever the Demiurge came to impart life to Adam by his inbreathing, he might at the same time draw off from the vital principle 6847 the spiritual seed, and, as by a pipe, inject it into the clayey nature; in order that, being then fecundated in the material body as in a womb, and having fully grown there, it might be found fit for one day receiving the perfect Word. 6848 When, therefore, the Demiurge commits to Adam the transmission of his own vital principle, 6849 the spiritual man lay hid, although inserted by his breath, and at the same time introduced into the body, because the Demiurge knew no more about his mother\u2019s seed than about herself. To this seed they give the name of Ecclesia (the Church), the mirror of the church above, and the perfection 6850 of man; tracing this perfection from Achamoth, just as they do the animal nature from the Demiurge, the clayey material of the body (they derive) from the primordial substance, 6851 the flesh from Matter. So that you have a new Geryon here, only a fourfold (rather than a threefold) monster.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: An Ext...","type":"page"}