Chap. XIX. - Palpable Absurdities and Contradictions in the System Respecting Achamoth and the Demiurge.
And yet there is not any agreement between the propriety of the names and that of the works, from which all the names are suggested; since all of them ought to have borne the name of her by whom the things were done, unless after all192 it turn out that they were not made by her. For, although they say that Achamoth devised these forms in honour of the Aeons, they yet193 transfer this work to Soter as its author, when they say that he194 operated through her, so far as to give her the very image of the invisible and unknown Father - that is, the image which was unknown and invisible to the Demiurge; whilst he195 formed this same Demiurge in imitation196 of Nus the son of Propator;197 and whilst the archangels, who were the work of the Demiurge, resembled the other Aeons. Now, when I hear of such images of the three, I ask, do you not wish me to laugh at these pictures of their most extravagant painter? At the female Achamoth, a picture of the Father? At the Demiurge, ignorant of his mother, much more so of his father? At the picture of Nus, Ignorant of his father too, and the ministering angels, facsimiles of their lords? This is painting a mule from an ass, and sketching Ptolemy from Valentinus.
Chap. XX. - The Demiurge Works Away at Creation, as the Drudge of His Mother Achamoth, in Ignorance All the While of the Nature of His Occupation.
The Demiurge therefore, placed as he was without the limits of the Pleroma in the ignominious solitude of his eternal exile, rounded a new empire - this world (of ours) - by clearing 514 away the confusion and distinguishing the difference between the two substances which severally constituted it,198 the animal and the material. Out of incorporeal (elements) he constructs bodies, heavy, light, erect199 and stooping, celestial and terrene. He then completes the sevenfold stages of heaven itself, with his own throne above all. Whence he had the additional name of Sabbatum from the hebdomadal nature of his abode; his mother Achamoth, too, had the title Ogdoada, after the precedent of the primeval Ogdoada.200 These heavens, however, they consider to be intelligent,201 and sometimes they make angels of them, as indeed they do of the Demiurge himself; as also (they call) Paradise the fourth archangel, because they fix it above the third heaven, of the power of which Adam partook, when he sojourned there amidst its fleecy clouds202 and shrubs.203 Ptolemy remembered perfectly well the prattle of his boyhood,204 that apples grew in the sea, and fishes on the tree; after the same fashion, he assumed that nut-trees flourished in the skies. The Demiurge does his work in ignorance, and therefore perhaps he is unaware that trees ought to be planted only on the ground. His mother, of course, knew all about it: how is it, then, that she did not suggest the fact, since she was actually executing her own operation? But whilst building up so vast an edifice for her son by means of those works, which proclaim him at once to be father, god and, king before the conceits of the Valentinians, why she refused to let them be known to even him,205 is a question which I shall ask afterwards.
Chap. XXI. - The Vanity as Well as Ignorance of the Demiurge. Absurd Results from so Imperfect a Condition.
Meanwhile you must believe206 that Sophia has the surnames of earth and of Mother - “Mother-Earth,” of course - and (what may excite your laughter still more heartily) even Holy Spirit. In this way they have conferred all honour on that female, I suppose even a beard, not to say other things. Besides,207 the Demiurge had so little mastery over things,208 on the score,209 you must know,210 of his inability to approach spiritual essences, (constituted as he was) of animal elements, that, imagining himself to be the only being, he uttered this soliloquy: “I am God, and beside me there is none else.” (Isa_45:5, Isa_46:9) But for all that, he at least was aware that he had not himself existed before. He understood, therefore, that he had been created, and that there must be a creator of a creature of some sort or other. How happens it, then, that he seemed to himself to be the only being, notwithstanding his uncertainty, and although he had, at any rate, some suspicion of the existence of some creator?
Chap. XXII. - Origin of the Devil, in the Criminal Excess of the Sorrow of Achamoth. The Devil, Called also Munditenens, Actually Wiser than the Demiurge, Although His Work.
The odium felt amongst them211 against the devil is the more excusable,212 even because the peculiarly sordid character of his origin justifies it.213 For he is supposed by them to have had his origin in that criminal excess214 of her215 sorrow, from which they also derive the birth of the angels, and demons, and all the wicked spirits. Yet they affirm that the devil is the work of the Demiurge, and they call him Munditenens216 (Ruler of the World), and maintain that, as he is of a spiritual nature, he has a better knowledge of the things above than the Demiurge, an animal being. He deserves from them the pre-eminence which all heresies provide him with.
Chap. XXIII. - The Relative Positions of the Pleroma. The Region of Achamoth, and the Creation of the Demiurge. The Addition of Fire to the Various Elements and Bodies of Nature.
Their most eminent powers, moreover, they confine within the following limits, as in a citadel. In the most elevated of all summits presides the tricenary Pleroma,217 Horos marking off its boundary line. Beneath it, Achamoth occupies the intermediate space for her abode,218 treading down her son. For under her comes the Demiurge in his own Hebdomad, or rather the Devil, sojourning in this world in common with ourselves, formed, as has been said above, of the same elements 515 and the same body, out of the most profitable calamities of Sophia; inasmuch as, (if it had not been for these,) our spirit would have had no space for inhaling and ejecting219 air - that delicate vest of all corporeal creatures, that revealer of all colours, that instrument of the seasons - if the sadness of Sophia had not filtered it, just as her fear did the animal existence, and her conversion the Demiurge himself. Into all these elements and bodies fire was fanned. Now, since they have not as yet explained to us the original sensation of this220 in Sophia, I will on my own responsibility221 conjecture that its spark was struck out of the delicate emotions222 of her (feverish grief). For you may be quite sure that, amidst all her vexations, she must have had a good deal of fever.223
Chap. XXIV. - The Formation of Man by the Demiurge. Human Flesh Not Made of the Ground, but of a Nondescript Philosophic Substance.
Such being their conceits respecting: God, or, if you like,224 the gods, of what sort are their figments concerning man? For, after he had made the world, the Demiurge turns his hands to man, and chooses for him as his substance not any portion of “the dry land,” as they say, of which alone we have any knowledge (although it was, at that time, not yet dried by the waters becoming separated from the earthy residuum, and only afterwards became dry), but of the invisible substance of that matter, which philosophy indeed dreams of, from its fluid and fusible composition, the origin of which I am unable to imagine, because it exists nowhere. Now, since fluidity and fusibility are qualities Of liquid matter, and since everything liquid flowed from Sophia’s tears, we must, as a necessary conclusion, believe that muddy earth is constituted of Sophia’s eye-rheums and viscid discharges,225 which are just as much the dregs of tears as mud is the sediment of waters. Thus does the Demiurge mould man as a potter does his clay, and animates him with his own breath. Made after his image and likeness, he will therefore be both material and animal. A fourfold being! For in respect of his “image,” he must be deemed clayey,226 that is to say, material, although the Demiurge is not composed of matter; but as to his “likeness,” he is animal, for such, too, is the Demiurge. You have two (of his constituent elements). Moreover, a coating of flesh was, as they allege, afterwards placed over the clayey substratum, and it is this tunic I of skin which is susceptible of sensation.
Chap. XXV. - An 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.
In Achamoth, moreover, there was inherent a certain property of a spiritual germ, of her mother Sophia’s 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 imagine227 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 principle228 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.229 When, therefore, the Demiurge commits to Adam the transmission of his own vital principle,230 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’s seed than about herself. To this seed they give the name of Ecclesia (the Church), the mirror of the church above, and the perfection231 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,232 the flesh from Matter. So that you have a new Geryon here, only a fourfold (rather than a threefold) monster.
Chap. XXVI. - The Three Several Natures - The Material, the Animal, and the Spiritual, and Their Several Destinations. The Strange Valentinian Opinion About the Structure of Soter’s Nature.
In like manner they assign to each of them a separate end.233 To the material, that is to say the carnal (nature), which they also call “the left-handed,” they assign undoubted 516 destruction; to the animal (nature), which they also call “the right-handed,” a doubtful issue, inasmuch as it oscillates between the material and the spiritual, and is sure to fall at last on the side to which it has mainly gravitated. As regards the spiritual, however, (they say) that it enters into the formation of the animal, in order that it may be educated in company with it and be disciplined by repeated intercourse with it. For the animal (nature) was in want of training even by the senses: for this purpose, accordingly, was the whole structure of the world provided; for this purpose also did Soter (the Saviour) present Himself in the world - even for the salvation of the animal (nature). By yet another arrangement they will have it that He, in some prodigious way,234 clothed Himself with the primary portions235 of those substances, the whole of which He was going to restore to salvation; in such wise that He assumed the spiritual nature from Achamoth, whilst He derived the animal (being), Christ, afterwards from the Demiurge; His corporal substance, however, which was constructed of an animal nature (only with wonderful and indescribable skill), He wore for a dispensational purpose, in order that He might, in spite of His own unwillingness,236 be capable of meeting persons, and of being seen and touched by them, and even of dying. But there was nothing material assumed by Him, inasmuch as that was incapable of salvation. As if He could possibly have been more required by any others than by those who were in want of salvation! And all this, in order that by severing the condition of our flesh from Christ they may also deprive it of the hope of salvation!
Chap. XXVII. - The Christ of the Demiurge, Sent into the World by the Virgin. Not of Her. He Found in Her, Not a Mother, but Only a Passage or Channel. Jesus Descended upon Christ, at His Baptism, like a Dove; But, Being Incapable of Suffering, He Left Christ to Die on the Cross Alone.
I now adduce237 (what they say) concerning Christ, upon whom some of them engraft Jesus with so much licence, that they foist into Him a spiritual seed together with an animal inflatus. Indeed, I will not undertake to describe238 these incongruous crammings,239 which they have contrived in relation both to their men and their gods. Even the Demiurge has a Christ of His on - His natural Son. An animal, in short, produced by Himself, proclaimed by the prophets - His position being one which must be decided by prepositions; in other words, He was produced by means of a virgin, rather than of a virgin! On the ground that, having descended into the virgin rather in the manner of a passage through her than of a birth by her, He came into existence through her, not of her - not experiencing a mother in her, but nothing more than a way. Upon this same Christ, therefore (so they say.), Jesus descended in the sacrament of baptism, in the likeness of a dove. Moreover, there was even in Christ accruing from Achamoth the condiment of a spiritual seed, in order of course to prevent the corruption of all the other stuffing.240 For after the precedent of the principal Tetrad, they guard him with four substances - the spiritual one of Achamoth, the animal one of the Demiurge, the corporeal one, which cannot be described, and that of Soter, or, in other phrase, the columbine.241 As for Soter (Jesus), he remained in Christ to the last, impassible, incapable of injury, incapable of apprehension. By and by, when it came to a question of capture, he departed from him during the examination before Pilate. In like manner, his mother’s seed did not admit of being injured, being equally exempt from all manner of outrage,242 and being undiscovered even by the Demiurge himself. The animal and carnal Christ, however, does suffer after the fashion243 of the superior Christ, who, for the purpose of producing Achamoth, had been stretched upon the cross, that is, Horos, in a substantial though not a cognizable244 form. In this manner do they reduce all things to mere images - Christians themselves being indeed nothing but imaginary beings!
Chap. XXVIII. - The Demiurge Cured of His Ignorance by the Saviour’s Advent, from whom He Hears of the Great Future in Store for Himself.
Meanwhile the Demiurge, being still ignorant of everything, although he will actually have to make some announcement himself by the prophets, but is quite incapable of even this part of his duty (because they divide authority over the prophets245 between Achamoth, the Seed, and the Demiurge), no sooner 517 heard of the advent of Sorer (Saviour) than he runs to him with haste and joy, with all his might, like the centurion in the Gospel. (Mat_8:5-6) And being enlightened by him on all points, he learns from him also of his own prospect how that he is to succeed to his mother’s place. Being thenceforth free from all care, he carries on the administration of this world, mainly under the plea of protecting the church, for as long a time as may be necessary and proper.
Chap. XXIX. - The Three Natures Again Adverted To. They Are All Exemplified Amongst Men. For Instance, by Cain, and Abel, and Seth.
I will now collect from different sources, by way of conclusion, what they affirm concerning the dispensation246 of the whole human race. Having at first stated their views as to man’s threefold nature - which was, however, united in one247 in the case of Adam - they then proceed after him to divide it (into three) with their especial characteristics, finding opportunity for such distinction in the posterity of Adam himself, in which occurs a threefold division as to moral differences. Cain and Abel, and Seth, who were in a certain sense the sources of the human race, become the fountain-heads of just as many qualities248 of nature and essential character.249 The material nature,250 which had become reprobate for salvation, they assign to Cain; the animal nature, which was poised between divergent hopes, they find251 in Abel; the spiritual, preordained for certain salvation, they store up251 in Seth. In this way also they make a twofold distinction among souls, as to their property of good and evil - according to the material condition derived from Cain, or the animal from Abel. Men’s spiritual state they derive over and above the other conditions,252 from Seth adventitiously,253 not in the way of nature, but of grace,254 in such wise that Achamoth infuses it255 among superior beings like rain256 into good souls, that is, those who are enrolled in the animal class. Whereas the material class - in other words, those which are bad souls - they say, never receive the blessings of salvation;257 for that nature they have pronounced to be incapable of any change or reform in its natural condition.258 This grain, then, of spiritual seed is modest and very small when cast from her hand, but under her instruction259 increases and advances into full conviction, as we have already said; (above, in ch. xxv. p. 515.) and the souls, on this very account, so much excelled all others, that the Demiurge, even then in his ignorance, held them in great esteem. For it was from their list that he had been accustomed to select men for kings and for priests; and these even now, if they have once attained to a full and complete knowledge of these foolish conceits of theirs,260 since they are already naturalized in the fraternal bond of the spiritual state, Will obtain a sure salvation, nay, one which is on all accounts their due.
Chap. XXX. - The Lax and Dangerous Views of This Sect Respecting Good Works, that These Are Unnecessary to the Spiritual Man.
For this reason it is that they neither regard works261 as necessary for themselves, nor do they observe any of the calls of duty, eluding even the necessity of martyrdom on any pretence which may suit their pleasure. For this rule, (they say), is enjoined upon the animal seed, in order that the salvation, which we do not possess by any privilege of our state,262 we may work out by right263 of our conduct. Upon us, who are of an imperfect nature,264 is imprinted the mark of this (animal) seed, because we are reckoned as sprung from the loves of Theletus, (see above, ch. ix. x. p. 508) and consequently as an abortion, just as their mother was. But woe to us indeed, should we in any point transgress the yoke of discipline, should we grow dull in the works of holiness and justice, should we desire to make our confession anywhere else, I know not where, and not before the powers of this world at the tribunals of the chief magistrates! (see Scorpiace, ch. x. infra.) As for them, however, they may prove their nobility by the dissoluteness265 of their life and their diligence266 in sin, since Achamoth fawns on them as her own; for she, too, found sin no unprofitable pursuit. Now it is held amongst them, that, for the purpose of honouring the celestial 518 marriages,267 it is necessary to contemplate and celebrate the mystery always by cleaving to a companion, that, is to a woman; otherwise (they account any man) degenerate, and a bastard268 to the truth, who spends his life in the world without loving a woman or uniting himself to her. Then what is to become of the eunuchs whom we see amongst them?
Chap. XXXI. - At the Last Day Great Changes Take Place Amongst the Aeons as Well as Among Men. How Achamoth and the Demiurge Are Affected Then. Irony on the Subject.
It remains that we say something about the end of the world,269 and the dispensing of reward. As soon as Achamoth has completed the full harvest of her seed, and has then proceeded to gather it into her garner, or, after it has been taken to the mill and ground to flour, has hidden it in the kneading-trough with yeast until the whole be leavened, then shall the end speedily come.270 Then, to begin with, Achamoth herself removes from the middle region, (see above, ch. xxiii. p. 514) from the second stage to the highest, since she is restored to the Pleroma: she is immediately received by that paragon of perfection271 Sorer, as her spouse of course, and they two afterwards consummate272 new nuptials. This must be the spouse of the Scripture,273 the Pleroma of espousals (for you might suppose that the Julian laws274 were interposing, since there are these migrations from place to place). In like manner, the Demiurge, too, will then change the scene of his abode from the celestial Hebdomad275 to the higher regions, to his mother’s now vacant saloon276 - by this time knowing her, without however seeing her. (A happy coincidence!) For if he had caught a glance of her, he would have preferred never to have known her.
Chap. XXXII. - Indignant Irony Exposing the Valentinian Fable About the Judicial Treatment of Mankind at the Last Judgment. The Immorality of the Doctrine.
As for the human race, its end will be to the following effect: - To all which bear the earthy277 and material mark there accrues an entire destruction, because “all flesh is grass,” (Isa_40:6) and amongst these is the soul of moral man, except when it has found salvation by faith. The souls of just men, that is to say, our souls, will be conveyed to the Demiurge in the abodes of the middle region. We are duly thankful; we shall be content to be classed with our god, in whom lies our own origin. (see above, in ch. xxiv. p. 515.) Into the palace of the Pleroma nothing of the animal nature is admitted - nothing but the spiritual swarm of Valentinus. There, then, the first process is the despoiling of men themselves, that is, men within the Pleroma.278 Now this despoiling consists of the putting off of the souls in which they appear to be clothed, which they will give back to their Demiurge as they had obtained279 them from him. They will then become wholly intellectual spirits - impalpable,280 invisible281 - and in this state will be readmitted invisibly to the Heroma - stealthily, if the case admits of the idea.282 What then? They will be dispersed amongst the angels, the attendants on Soter. As sons, do you suppose? Not at all. As servants, then? No, not even so. Well, as phantoms? Would that it were nothing more! Then in what capacity, if you are ashamed to tell us? In the capacity of brides. Then will they end283 their Sabine rapes with the sanction of wedlock. This will be the guerdon of the spiritual, this the recompense of their faith! Such fables have their use. Although but a Marcus or a Gaius,284 full-grown in this flesh of ours, with a beard and such like proofs (of virility,) it may be a stern husband, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather (never mind what, in fact, if only a male), you may perhaps in the bridal-chamber of the Pleroma - I have already said so tacitly285 - even become the parent by an angel of some Aeon of high numerical rank.286 For the right celebration of these nuptials, instead of the torch and veil, I suppose that secret fire is then to burst forth, which, after devastating the whole existence of things, will itself also be reduced to nothing at last, after everything has been reduced to ashes; and so their fable too will be ended.287 But I, too, 519 am no doubt a rash man, in having exposed: so great a mystery in so derisive a way: I ought to be afraid that Achamoth, who did not choose to make herself known even to her own son, would turn mad, that Theletus would be enraged, that Fortune288 would be irritated. But I am yet a liege-man of the Demiurge. I have to return after death to the place where there is no more giving in marriage, where I have to be clothed upon rather than to be despoiled, - where, even if I am despoiled of my sex, I am Glassed with angels - not a male angel, nor a female one. There will be no one to do aught against me, nor will they then find any male energy in me.
Chap. XXXIII. - These Remaining Chapters an Appendix to the Main Work. In This Chapter Tertullian Notices a Difference Among Sundry Followers of Ptolemy, a Disciple of Valentinus.
I shall now at last produce, by way of finale,289 after so long a story, those points which not to interrupt the course of it, and by the interruption distract the reader’s attention, I have preferred reserving to this place. They have been variously advanced by those who have improved on290 the doctrines of Ptolemy. For there have been in his school “disciples above their master,” who have attributed to their Bythus two wives - Cogitatio (Thought) and Voluntas (Will). For Cogitatio alone was not sufficient wherewith to produce any offspring, although from the two wives procreation was most easy to him. The former bore him Monogenes (Only-Begotten) and Veritas (Truth). Veritas was a female after the likeness of Cogitatio; Monogenes a male bearing a resemblance to Voluntas. For it is the strength of Voluntas which procures the masculine nature,291 inasmuch as she affords efficiency to Cogitatio.
Chap. XXXIV. - Other Varying Opinions Among the Valentinians Respecting the Deity, Characteristic Raillery.
Others of purer mind, mindful of the honour of the Deity, have, for the purpose of freeing him from the discredit of even single wedlock, preferred assigning no sex whatever to By-thus; and therefore very likely they talk of “this deity” in the neuter gender rather than “this god.” Others again, on the other hand, speak of him as both masculine and feminine, so that the worthy chronicler Fenestella must not suppose that an hermaphrodite; was only to be found among the good people of Luna.
Chap. XXXV. - Yet More Discrepancies. Just Now the Sex of Bythus Was an Object of Dispute; Now His Rank Comes in Question. Absurd Substitutes for Bythus Criticised by Tertullian.
There are some who do not claim the first place for Bythus, but only a lower one. They put their Ogdoad in the foremost rank; itself, however, derived from a Tetrad, but under different names. For they put Proarche (Before the Beginning) first, Anennoetos (Inconceivable) second, Arrhetos (Indescribable) third, Aoratos (Invisible) fourth. Then after Proarche they say Arche (Beginning) came forth and occupied the first and the fifth place; from Anennoetos came Acataleptos (Incomprehensible) in the second and the sixth place; from Arrhetos came Anonomastos (Nameless) in the third and the seventh place; from Aoratos292 came Agennetos (Unbegotten) in the fourth and the eight place. Now by what method he arranges this, that each of these Aeons should be born in two places, and that, too, at such intervals, I prefer to be ignorant of than to be informed. For what can be right in a system which is propounded with such absurd particulars?
Chap. XXXVI. - Less Reprehensible Theories in the Heresy. Bad Is the Best of Valentinianism.
How much more sensible are they who, rejecting all this tiresome nonsense, have refused to believe that any one Aeon has descended from another by steps like these, which are really neither more nor less Gemonian;293 but that on a given signal294 the eight-fold emanation, of which we have heard,295 issued all at once from the Father and His Ennoea (Thought), (see above, ch. vii. p. 506) - that it is, in fact, from His mere motion that they gain their designations. When, as they say, He thought of producing offspring, He on that account gained the name of Father. After producing, because the issue which He produced was true, He received the name of Truth. When He wanted Himself to be manifested, He on that account was announced as Man. Those, moreover, whom He preconceived in His thought when He produced them, were then designated the Church. As man, He uttered 520 His Word; and so this Word is His first-begotten Son, and to the Word was added Life. And by this process the first Ogdoad was completed. However, the whole of this tiresome story is utterly poor and weak.
Chap. XXXVII. - Other Turgid and Ridiculous Theories About the Origin of the Aeons and Creation, Stated and Condemned.
Now listen to some other buffooneries296 of a master who is a great swell among them,297 and who has pronounced his dicta with an even priestly authority. They run thus: There comes, says he, before all things Proarche, the inconceivable, and indescribable, and nameless, which I for my own part call Monotes (Solitude). With this was associated another power, to which also I give the name of Henotes (Unity). Now, inasmuch as Monotes and Henotes - that is to say, Solitude and Union - were only one being, they produced, and yet not in the way of production,298 the intellectual, innascible, invisible beginning of all things, which human language299 has called Monad (Solitude).300 This has inherent in itself a consubstantial force, which it calls Unity.301 These powers, accordingly, Solitude or Solitariness, and Unity, or Union, propagated all the other emanations of Aeons. (compare our Irenæus, i. 2, 3.) Wonderful distinction, to be sure! Whatever change Union and Unity may undergo, Solitariness and Solitude is profoundly supreme. Whatever designation you give the power, it is one and the same.
Chap. XXXVIII. - Diversity in the Opinions of Secundus, as Compared with the General Doctrine of Valentinus.
Secundus is a trifle more human, as he is briefer: he divides the Ogdoad into a pair of Tetrads, a right hand one and a left hand one, one light and the other darkness. Only he is unwilling to derive the power which apostatized and fell away302 from any one of the Aeons, but from the fruits which issued from their substance.
Chap. XXXIX. - Their Diversity of Sentiment Affects the Very Central Doctrine of Christianity, Even the Person and Character of the Lord Jesus. This Diversity Vitiates Every Gnostic School.
Now, concerning even the Lord Jesus, into how great a diversity of opinion are they divided! One party form Him of the blossoms of all the Aeons. (see above, ch. xii. p. 510) Another party will have it that He is made up only of those ten whom the Word and the Life303 produced; (see above, ch. vii. p. 506) from which circumstance the titles of the Word and the Life were suitably transferred to Him. Others, again, that He rather sprang from the twelve, the offspring of Man and the Church (see above, ch. viii. p. 507) and therefore, they say, He was designated “Son of man.” Others, moreover, maintain that He was formed by Christ and the Holy Spirit, who have to provide for the establishment of the universe, (see above, ch. xiv. p. 511) and that He inherits by right His Father’s appellation. Some there are who have imagined that another origin must be found for the title “Son of man;” for they have had the presumption to call the Father Himself Man, by reason of the profound mystery of this title: so that what can you hope for more ample concerning faith in that God, with whom you are now yourself on a par? Such conceits are constantly cropping out304 amongst them, from the redundance of their mother’s seed.305 And so it happens that the doctrines which have grown up amongst the Valentinians have already extended their rank growth to the woods of the Gnostics.
FOOTNOTES
192 Jam.
193 Rursus.
194 This is the force of the “qui” with the subjunctive verb.
195 Soter.
196 Effingeret.
197 There seems to be a relative gradation meant among these extra-Pleroma beings, as there was among the Æons of the Pleroma; and further, a relation between the two sets of beings - Achamoth bearing a relation to Propator, the Demiurge to Nus, etc.
198 Duplicis substantiæ illius disclusæ.
199 Sublimantia.
200 Ogdoadis primogenitalis: what Irenæus calls “the first begotten and primary Ogdoad of the Pleroma” (see our Irenæus, Vol. I.; also above, chap. vii. p. 506.)
201 Noëros.
202 Nubeculas.
203 Arbusculas.
204 Puerilium dicibulorum.
205 Sibi here must refer to the secondary agent of the sentence.
216 Irenæus’ word is Κοσμοκράτωρ; see also Eph_6:12.
217 Above, in chap. viii., he has mentioned the pleroma as “the fulness of the thirtyfold divinity.”
218 Metatur.
219 Reciprocandi.
220 Fire.
221 Ego.
222 Motiunculis.
223 Febricitasse.
224 Vel.
225 Ex pituitis et gramis.
226 Choicus.
227 Accipe.
228 Anima derivaret.
229 Sermoni perfecto.
230 Traducem animæ suæ.
231 Censum.
232 Or, the substance of Ἀρχή.
233 Exitum.
234 Monstruosum illum.
235 Prosicias induisse. Irenæus says, “Assumed the first-fruits,” τὰς ἀπαρχάς.
236 Ingratis.
237 Reddo.
238 Nescio quæ.
239 Fartilia.
240 Farsura.
241 That which descended like a dove.
242 Æque insubditivam.
243 In delineationem.
244 Agnitionali.
245 Prophetiale patrocinium.
246 De dispositione.
247 Inunitam.
248 Argumenta.
249 Essentiæ.
250 Choicum: “the clayey.” Having the doubtful issues, which arise from freedom of the will (Oehler).
251 Recondunt: or, “discover.”
252 Superducunt.
253 De obvenientia.
254 Indulgentiam.
255 The “quos” here relates to “spiritalem statum,” but expressing the sense rather than the grammatical propriety, refers to the plural idea of “good souls: (Oehler).
256 Depluat.
257 Salutaria.
258 We have tried to retain the emphatic repetition, “inreformabilem naturænaturam.”
259 Eruditu hujus.
260 Istarum næniarum.
261 Operationes: “the doing of (good) works.”
262 As, forsooth, we should in the spiritual state.
