Hippolytus

“ Grant Paradise, he says, to be the womb; and that this is a true (assumption) the Scripture will teach, when it utters the words, “I am He who forms thee in thy mother’s womb.” [6] For this also he wishes to have been written so. Moses, he says, resorting to allegory, has declared Paradise to be the womb, if we ought to rely on his statement. If, however, God forms man in his mother’s womb—that is, in Paradise—as I have affirmed, let Paradise be the womb, and Edem the after-birth, [7] “a river flowing forth from Edem, for the purpose of irrigating Paradise,” [8] (meaning by this) the navel. ”

“ For the infant that was formed in Paradise neither receives nourishment through the mouth, nor breathes through the nostrils: for as it lay in the midst of moisture, at its feet was death, if it attempted to breathe ”

“ Now this seventh power, which was a power existing in the indefinite power, which was produced prior to all the Ages, this is, he says, the seventh power, respecting which Moses utters the following words: “And the Spirit of God was wafted over [3] the water;” that is, says (the Simonian) , the Spirit which contains all things in itself, and is an image of the indefinite power about which Simon speaks,—“an image from an incorruptible form, that alone reduces all things into order.” ”