ed down into the Lower Regions; and
that there, the design of the Father being prevented, she had
brought forth Angelic Powers ignorant of the Father, the artificer
of this world (?); by these she was detained, not according to his
intention, lest when she had gone they should be thought to be the
progeny of another, etc.

The _Philosophumena_ say nothing on this point, except that Epinoia
"throws all the Powers in the World into confusion through her
unsurpassable Beauty."

Philaster renders confusion worse confounded, by writing:

And he also dared to say that the World had been made by Angels,
and the Angels again had been made by certain endowed with
perception from Heaven, and that they (the Angels) had deceived the
human race.

He asserted, moreover, that there was a certain other Thought
(Intellectus) who descended into the world for the salvation of
men.

Epiphanius further complicates the problem as follows:

This Power (Prunicus and Holy Spirit) descending from Above changed
its form.... And through the Power from Above ... displaying her
beauty, she drove them to frenzy, and on this account was she sent
for the despoiling of the Rulers who brought the World into being;
and the Angels themselves went to war on her account; and while she
experienced nothing, they set to work to mutually slaughter each
other on account of the desire which she infused into them for
herself.

Theodoret briefly follows Irenaeus.

In these contradictory accounts we have a great confusion between the
roles played by Nous and Epinoia, the Father and Thought, the Spirit and
Spiritual Soul. Then again how did the Lower Regions come into
existence, for Epinoia to descend to them? This lacuna is filled by the
fuller information of the _Philosophumena_ which shows us the scheme of
self-emanation out or down into matter by similitude, thus confining the
problem of "evil" to space and time, and not raising it into an eternal
principle. Naturally it is not to be supposed that the origin of "evil"
is solvable for man in his present state, therefore whether it was
according to the design or contrary to the design of the Father, will
ever depend upon the point of view from which we severally regard the
problem.

Law, Justice, and Compassion are not incompatible terms to one whose
heart is set firm on spiritual things; and the view that