Refutation of All Heresies, Vol. 2

of generation. And he says that the roots came from the fire in pairs: Nous (Mind) and Epinoia (Thought), Phone (Voice) and Onoma (Name), Logismos (Reasoning) and Enthymesis (Passion). The whole of the Boundless Power together is potentially, but not actively, in these six roots. This Boundless Power is He who Stood, Stands, and will Stand. If this power is made into a complete image of the fire, it will be in substance, power, greatness, and effect one and the same with that Unbegotten and Boundless Power, lacking nothing possessed by that infinite power. But if it remains only potentially in the six powers and is not made into a complete image, it is done away with and is lost, much like the capacity for grammar or geometry in a human soul. For power, when taking to itself skill, becomes a light of the things which are; but if it does not take skill unto itself, it is unskillfulness and darkness, and as if it were not, it perishes p. 251. with the man at his death.