CHAP. I.—INTRODUCTORY. TERTULLIAN COMPARES THE HERESY TO THE OLD ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. BOTH SYSTEMS ALIKE IN PREFERRING CONCEALMENT OF ERROR AND SIN TO PROCLAMATION OF TRUTH AND VIRTUE

The Valentinians, who are no doubt a very large body of heretics—comprising as they do so many apostates from the truth, who have a propensity for fables, and no discipline to deter them (therefrom) care for nothing so much as to obscure¹ what they preach, if indeed they (can be said to) preach who obscure their doctrine. The officiousness with which they guard their doctrine is an officiousness which betrays their guilt.² Their disgrace is proclaimed in the very earnestness with which they maintain their religious system. Now, in the case of those Eleusinian mysteries, which are the very heresy of Athenian superstition, it is their secrecy that is their disgrace. Accordingly, they previously beset all access to their body with tormenting conditions;³ and they require a long initiation before they enrol (their members),⁴ even instruction during five years for their perfect disciples (Ἐπόπται.),⁵ in order that they may mould⁶ their opinions by this suspension of full knowledge, and apparently raise the dignity of their mysteries in proportion to the craving for them which they have previously created. Then follows the duty of silence. Carefully is that guarded, which is so long in finding. All the divinity, however, lies in their secret recesses:⁷ there are revealed at last all the aspirations of the fully initiated,⁸ the entire mystery of the sealed tongue, the symbol of virility. But this allegorical representation,⁹ under the pretext of nature’s reverend name, obscures a real sacrilege by help of an arbitrary symbol,¹⁰ and by empty images obviates¹¹ the reproach of falsehood!¹² In like manner, the heretics who are now the object of our remarks,¹³ the Valentinians, have formed Eleusinian dissipations¹⁴ of their own, consecrated by a profound silence, having nothing of the heavenly in them but their mystery.¹⁵ By the help of the sacred names and titles and arguments of true religion, they have fabricated the vainest and foulest figment for men’s pliant liking,¹⁶ out of the affluent suggestions of Holy Scripture, since from its many springs many errors may well emanate. If you propose to them inquiries sincere and honest, they answer you with stern¹⁷ look and contracted brow, and say, “The subject is profound.” If you try them with subtle questions, with the ambiguities of their double tongue, they affirm a community of faith (with yourself). If you intimate to them that you understand their opinions, they insist on knowing nothing themselves. If you come to a close engagement with them, they destroy your own fond hope of a victory over them by a self-immolation.¹ Not even to their own disciples do they commit a secret before they have made sure of them. They have the knack of persuading men before instructing them; although truth persuades by teaching, but does not teach by first persuading.

CAP. I. [1] Valentiniani, frequentissimum plane collegium inter haereticos, quia plurimum ex apostatis veritatis et ad fabulas facile est et disciplina non terretur, nihil magis curant quam occultare quod praedicant, si tamen praedicant qui occultant. custodiae officium conscientiae officium est. confusio praedicatur dum religio adserveratur. nam et illa Eleusinia, haeresis et ipsa Atticae superstitionis, quod tacent, pudor est. [2] idcirco et aditum prius cruciant diutius initiant quam consignant, cum epoptas ante quinquennium instituunt ut opinionem suspendio cognitionis aedificent atque ita tantam maiestatem exhibere videantur quantam praestruxerunt cupiditatem. sequitur silentii officium; [3] attente custoditur quod tarde invenitur, ceterum tota in adytis divinitas, tota suspira epoptarum, totum signaculum linguae: simulacrum membri virilis revelatur. sed naturae venerandum nomen allegorica dispositio praetendeus, patrocinio coactae figurae sacrilegium obscurat etconvicium falsis simulacris excusat. proinde quos nunc destinamus haereticos sanctis nominibus et titulis et argumentis verae religionis vanissima atque turpissima figmenta configurantes--facili caritate ex divinae copiae occasione quia de multis multa succedere est--Eleusinia Valentiniana fecerunt lenocinia, sancta silentio magno, sola taciturnitate caelestia. [4] si bona fide quaeras, concreto vultu, suspenso supercilio “altum est” aiunt. si subtiliter temptes, per ambiguitates bilingues communem fidem adfirmat. si scire te subostendas, negant quicquid agnoscunt. si commiNous certes astuta simplicitate suam caedem dispergunt. ne discipulis quidem propriis ante commitunt quam suos fecerint. habent artificium quo prius persuadeant quam edocent. veritas autem docendo persuadetnon suadendo docet.

CHAP. II.—THESE HERETICS BRAND THE CHRISTIANS AS SIMPLE PERSONS. THE CHARGE ACCEPTED, AND SIMPLICITY EULOGIZED OUT OF THE SCRIPTURES

For this reason we are branded² by them as simple, and as being merely so, without being wise also; as if indeed wisdom were compelled to be wanting in simplicity, whereas the Lord unites them both: “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and simple as doves.”³ Now if we, on our parts, be accounted foolish because we are simple, does it then follow that they are not simple because they are wise? Most perverse, however, are they who are not simple, even as they are most foolish who are not wise. And yet, (if I must choose) I should prefer taking⁴ the latter condition for the lesser fault; since it is perhaps better to have a wisdom which falls short in quantity, than that which is bad in quality⁵—better to be in error than to mislead. Besides, the face of the Lord⁶ is patiently waited for by those who “seek Him in simplicity of heart,” as says the very Wisdom—not of Valentinus, but—of Solomon.⁷ Then, again, infants have borne⁸ by their blood a testimony to Christ. (Would you say) that it was children who shouted “Crucify Him”?⁹ They were neither children nor infants; in other words, they were not simple. The apostle, too, bids us to “become children again” towards God,¹⁰ “to be as children in malice” by our simplicity, yet as being also “wise in our practical faculties.”¹¹ At the same time, with respect to the order of development in Wisdom, I have admitted¹² that it flows from simplicity. In brief, “the dove” has usually served to figure Christ; “the serpent,” to tempt Him. The one even from the first has been the harbinger of divine peace; the other from the beginning has been the despoiler of the divine image. Accordingly, simplicity alone¹³ will be more easily able to know and to declare God, whereas wisdom alone will rather do Him violence,¹⁴ and betray Him.

CAP II. [1] Ideoque simplices notamur apud illos, ut hoc tantum non etiam sapientes, quasi statim deficere cogatur a simplicitate sapientia, domino utramque ingente, “estote prudentes ut serpentes et simplices ut columbae.” aut si nos propterea insipientes quia simplices, num ergo et illi propterea non simplices quia sapientes? nocentissimi autem qui non simplices sicut stultissimi qui non sapientes. [2] et tamen malim meam partem meliori sumi vitio, si forte. praestat miNous sapere quam peius, errare quam fallere. porro facies dei spectatur in simplicitate quaerendi ut docet ipsa Sophia, non quidem Valentini, sed Salomonis. deinde infantes testimonium Christi sanguine litaverunt; pueros vocem qui crucem clamant? nec pueri nec infantes, id est simplices non erant; [3] repuerascere nos et apostolus iubet secundum deum, ut malitia infantes per simplicitatem ita demum sapientes sensibus; simul dedit sapientiae ordinem de simplicitate manandi. [4] in summa: Christum columba demonstrare solita est, serpens vero temptare; illa et a primordio divinae pacis praeco, ille a primordio divinae imaginis praedo. its facilius simplicitas sola deum et agnoscere poterit et ostendere, prudentia sola concuterepotius et prodere.

CHAP. III.—THE FOLLY OF THIS HERESY. IT DISSECTS AND MUTILATES THE DEITY. CONTRASTED WITH THE SIMPLE WISDOM OF TRUE RELIGION. TO EXPOSE THE ABSURDITIES OF THE VALENTINIAN SYSTEM IS TO DESTROY IT

Let, then, the serpent hide himself as much as he is able, and let him wrest¹⁵ all his wisdom in the labyrinths of his obscurities; let him dwell deep down in the ground; let him worm himself into secret holes; let him unroll his length through his sinuous joints;¹⁶ let him tortuously crawl, though not all at once,¹⁷ beast as he is that skulks the light. Of our dove, however, how simple is the very home!—always in high and open places, and facing the light! As the symbol of the Holy Spirit, it loves the (radiant) East, that figure of Christ.¹⁸ Nothing causes truth a blush, except only being hidden, because no man will be ashamed to give ear thereto. No man will be ashamed to recognise Him as God whom nature has already commended to him, whom he already perceives in all His works,¹⁹—Him indeed who is simply, for this reason, imperfectly known; because man has not thought of Him as only one, because he has named Him in a plurality (of gods), and adored Him in other forms. Yet,²⁰ to induce oneself to turn from this multitude of deities to another crowd,²¹ to remove from a familiar authority to an unknown one, to wrench oneself from what is manifest to what is hidden, is to offend faith on the very threshold. Now, even suppose that you are initiated into the entire fable, will it not occur to you that you have heard something very like it from your fond nurse²² when you were a baby, amongst the lullabies she sang to you¹ about the towers of Lamia, and the horns of the sun?² Let, however, any man approach the subject from a knowledge of the faith which he has otherwise learned, as soon as he finds so many names of Æons, so many marriages, so many offsprings, so many exits, so many issues, felicities and infelicities of a dispersed and mutilated Deity, will that man hesitate at once to pronounce that these are “the fables and endless genealogies” which the inspired apostle³ by anticipation condemned, whilst these seeds of heresy were even then shooting forth? Deservedly, therefore, must they be regarded as wanting in simplicity, and as merely prudent, who produce such fables not without difficulty, and defend them only indirectly, who at the same time do not thoroughly instruct those whom they teach. This, of course, shows their astuteness, if their lessons are disgraceful; their unkindness, if they are honourable. As for us, however, who are the simple folk, we know all about it. In short, this is the very first weapon with which we are armed for our encounter; it unmasks⁴ and brings to view⁵ the whole of their depraved system.⁶ And in this we have the first augury of our victory; because even merely to point out that which is concealed with so great an outlay of artifice,⁷ is to destroy it.

CAP. III. [1] abscondat itaque se serpens quantum potest, totamque prudentiam in latebrarum ambagibus torqueat, alte habitet, in casca detrudat, per amfractus seriem suam evolvat; tortuose procedat nec semel totus, lucifuga bestia; nostrae 10 columbae etiam domus simplex in editis semper et apertis et ad lucem. amat figura spiritus sancti orientem Christi figuram. [2] Nihil veritas erubescit nisi solummodo abscondi, quia nec pudebit ullum aures ei dedere, eum deum recognoscere quem iam illi natura commisit, quem cotidie in operi- 15 bus omnibus sentit, hoc solum miNous notum quod unicum non putavit, quod in numero nominavit, quod in aliis adoravit. [3] alioquin a turba eorum et aliam frequentiam suadere, adomestico principatu ad incognitum transmovere, a manifesto ad occultum retorquere de limine fidem offendere est. iam si et in totam fabulam initietur nonne tale aliquid recordabitur se in infamia inter somni difficultates a nutricula audisse, Lamiae turres et pectines Solis. [4] sed qui ex alia conscientia venerit fidei, si inveniat tot nomina Aeonum, tot conjugia, tot genimina, tot exitus, tot eventus felicitates infelicitates dispersae atque concisae divinitatis, dubitabitne ibidem pronuntiare has esse fabulas et genealogias indeterminatas quas apostoli spiritus, his iam tunc pullulantibus seminibus haereticis, damnare praevenit? [5] merito itaque non simplices, merito tantummodo prudentes, qui talia neque facile producunt neque exerte defendunt sed nec omnes quos edocent, perdocent. utique astute, ut pudenda, ceterum inhumane, si honesta. tamen simplices nos omnia scimus. denique hunc primum cuneum congressionis armavimus detectorem et designatorem totius conscientiae illorum primamque hanc victoriam auspicamur quia quod tanto impendio absconditur, etiam solummodo demonstrare destruere est.

CHAP. IV.—THE HERESY TRACEABLE TO VALENTINUS, AN ABLE BUT RESTLESS MAN. MANY SCHISMATICAL LEADERS OF THE SCHOOL MENTIONED. ONLY ONE OF THEM SHOWS RESPECT TO THE MAN WHOSE NAME DESIGNATES THE ENTIRE SCHOOL

We know, I say, most fully their actual origin, and we are quite aware why we call them Valentinians, although they affect to disavow their name. They have departed, it is true,⁸ from their founder, yet is their origin by no means destroyed; and even if it chance to be changed, the very change bears testimony to the fact. Valentinus had expected to become a bishop, because he was an able man both in genius and eloquence. Being indignant, however, that another obtained the dignity by reason of a claim which confessorship⁹ had given him, he broke with the church of the true faith. Just like those (restless) spirits which, when roused by ambition, are usually inflamed with the desire of revenge, he applied himself with all his might¹⁰ to exterminate the truth; and finding the clue¹¹ of a certain old opinion, he marked out a path for himself with the subtlety of a serpent. Ptolemæus afterwards entered on the same path, by distinguishing the names and the numbers of the Ænons into personal substances, which, however, he kept apart from God. Valentinus had included these in the very essence of the Deity, as senses and affections of motion. Sundry bypaths were then struck off therefrom, by Heraclean and Secundus and the magician Marcus. Theotimus worked hard about “the images of the law.” Valentinus, however, was as yet nowhere, and still the Valentinians derive their name from Valentinus. Axionicus at Antioch is the only man who at the present time does honour¹² to the memory of Valentinus, by keeping his rules¹³ to the full. But this heresy is permitted to fashion itself into as many various shapes as a courtezan, who usually changes and adjusts her dress every day. And why not? When they review that spiritual seed of theirs in every man after this fashion, whenever they have hit upon any novelty, they forthwith call their presumption a revelation, their own perverse ingenuity a spiritual gift; but (they deny all) unity, admitting only diversity.¹⁴ And thus we clearly see that, setting aside their customary dissimulation, most of them are in a divided state, being ready to say (and that sincerely) of certain points of their belief, “This is not so;” and, “I take this in a different sense;” and, “I do not admit that.” By this variety, indeed, innovation is stamped on the very face of their rules; besides which, it wears all the colourable features of ignorant conceits.¹⁵

CAP. IV.[1] novimus inquam optime originem quoque ipsorum et scimus cur Valentinianos appellemus, licet non esse videantur, abscesseruat enim a conditore sed minime origo deletur et si forte mutetur: testatio est ipsa mutatio. speraverat episcopatum Valentinus quia et ingenio poterat et eloquio, sed alium ex martyrii praerogativa loca potitum indignatus, de ecclesia authenticae regulae abrupit. ut solent animi pro prioratu exciti praesumptione ultionis accendi, [2] ad expugnandum conversus veritatem et cuiusdam veteris opinionis semitam nactus Colorbaso viam delineavit. eam postmodum Ptolomaeus intravit, nominibus et numeris Aeonum distinctis in personales substantias, sed extra deum determinatas, quas Valentinus in ipsa summa divinitatis (ut sensus et affectus, motus) incluserat. deduxit et Heracleon inde tramites quosdam et Secundus et magus Marcus. [3] multum circa imagines legis Theotimus operatus est. ita nusquam iam Valentinus et tamen Valentiniani qui per Valentinum. soius ad hodiernum Antiochiae Axionicus memoriam Valentini integra custodia regularum eius consolatur. alioquin tantum se huic haeresi suadere permissum est quantum lupae feminae formam cotidie supparare solemne est. [4] quidni, cum spiritale illud semen suum sic in unoquoque recenseant? si ali- quid novi adstruxerint revelationem statim appellant praesumptionem et charisma ingenium, nec unitatem sed diversitatem. ideoque prospicimus, seposita alla solemni dissimulatione sua, plerosque dividi quibusdam articulis. etiam bona fide dicturos “hoc ita non est” et “hoc aliter accipio” et “hoc non agnosco.” varietate enim innovatur regularum facies; habet etiam colores ignorantiarum.

CHAP. V.—MANY EMINENT CHRISTIAN WRITERS HAVE CAREFULLY AND FULLY REFUTED THE HERESY. THESE THE AUTHOR MAKES HIS OWN GUIDES

My own path, however, lies along the original tenets¹⁶ of their chief teachers, not with the self-appointed leaders of their promiscuous¹⁷ followers. Nor shall we hear it said of us from any quarter, that we have of our own mind fashioned our own materials, since these have been already produced, both in respect of the opinions and their refutations, in carefully written volumes, by so many eminently holy and excellent men, not only those who have lived before us, but those also who were contemporary with the heresiarchs themselves: for instance Justin, philosopher and martyr;¹ Miltiades, the sophist² of the churches; Irenæus, that very exact inquirer into all doctrines;³ our own Proculus, the model⁴ of chaste old age and Christian eloquence. All these it would be my desire closely to follow in every work of faith, even as in this particular one. Now if there are no heresies at all, but what those who refute them are supposed to have fabricated, then the apostle who predicted them⁵ must have been guilty of falsehood. If, however, there are heresies, they can be no other than those which are the subject of discussion. No writer can be supposed to have so much time on his hands⁶ as to fabricate materials which are already in his possession.

CAP V. [1] mihi autem cum archetypis erat limes principalium magistrorum, non cum affectatis ducibus passivorum discipulorum. nec undique dicemur ipsi nobis finxisse materias quas tot iam viri sanctitate et praestantia insignes, nec solum nos- tra antecessores sed ipsorum haeresiarcharum contemporales, instructissimis voluminibus et prodiderunt et retuderuntut Iustinus, philosophus et martyr; ut Miltiades, ecclesiarum sophista; ut Irenaeus, omnium doctrinarum curiosissimus explorator; ut Proculus noster, virginis senectae et Christianae eloquentiae dignitas, quos in omasi opere fidei quemadmodum in isto optaverim adsequi; [2] aut si in totum haereses non sunt, ut qui eas pellunt finxisse credantur, mentietur apostolus praedicator illarum. porro si sunt, non aliae erunt quam quae retractantur. nemo tam otiosus fertur, stilo ut materias habens fingat.

CHAP. VI.—ALTHOUGH WRITING IN LATIN HE PROPOSES TO RETAIN THE GREEK NAMES OF THE VALENTINIAN EMANATIONS OF DEITY. NOT TO DISCUSS THE HERESY BUT ONLY TO EXPOSE IT. THIS WITH THE RAILLERY WHICH ITS ABSURDITY MERITS

In order then, that no one may be blinded by so many outlandish⁷ names, collected together, and adjusted at pleasure,⁸ and of doubtful import, I mean in this little work, wherein we merely undertake to propound this (heretical) mystery, to explain in what manner we are to use them. Now the rendering of some of these names from the Greek to as to produce an equally obvious sense of the word, is by no means an easy process: in the case of some others, the genders, are not suitable; while others, again, are more familiarly known in their Greek form. For the most part, therefore, we shall use the Greek names; their meanings will be seen on the margins of the pages. Nor will the Greek be unaccompanied with the Latin equivalents; only these will be marked in lines above, for the purpose of explaining⁹ the personal names, rendered necessary by the ambiguities of such of them as admit some different meaning. But although I must postpone all discussion, and be content at present with the mere exposition (of the heresy), still, wherever any scandalous feature shall seem to require a castigation, it must be attacked¹⁰ by all means, if only with a passing thrust.¹¹ Let the reader regard it as the skirmish before the battle. It will be my drift to show how to wound¹² rather than to inflict deep gashes. If in any instance mirth be excited, this will be quite as much as the subject deserves. There are many things which deserve refutation in such a way as to have no gravity expended on them. Vain and silly topics are met with especial fitness by laughter. Even the truth may indulge in ridicule, because it is jubilant; it may play with its enemies, because it is fearless.¹³ Only we must take care that its laughter be not unseemly, and so itself be laughed at; but wherever its mirth is decent, there it is a duty to indulge it. And so at last I enter on my task.

CAP. VI. [1] igitur hoc libello quo demonstrationem solum praemittentes illius arcani, ne quem ex nominibus tam peregrinis et coac- tis et compactis et ambiguis caligo suffundat, quomodo iis usuri sumus, prius demandabo: quorundam enim de Graeco interpretatio non occurrit ad expeditam proinde nominis formae; quorundam nec de sexu genera conveniunt; quorundam usi- tatior in Graeco notitia est. [2] itaque plurimum Graeca pone- mus; significentiae per paginarum limites aderunt, nec Latinis quidem deerunt Graeca sed in lineis desuper notabuntur ut signum hoc sit personalium nominum propter ambiguitates eorum quae cum alia significatione communicant. quamquam distulerim congestionem, solam interim professus narrationem, sicubi tamen indignitas meruerit suggillari non erit delibatione transpunctatoria expugnatio. congressionis lusi- onem deputa, lector, ante pugnam; ostendam sed non imprimam vulnera. [3] si et ridebitur alicubi, materiis ipsis satisfiet. multa sic digna sunt revinci ne gravitate adornentur. vanitati proprie festivitas cedit. congruit et veritate ridere quia laetans, de aemulis suis ludere quia secura est. cur- andum plane ne risus eius rideatur si fuerit indignus. ceterum ubicumque digNous risus, officium est. denique hocmodo incipiam.

CHAP. VII.—THE FIRST EIGHT EMANATIONS, OR ÆONS, CALLED THE OGDOAD, ARE THE FOUNTAIN OF ALL THE OTHERS. THEIR NAMES AND DESCENT RECORDED

Beginning with Ennius,¹⁴ the Roman poet, he simply spoke of “the spacious saloons¹⁵ of heaven,”—either on account of their elevated site, or because in Homer he had read about Jupiter banqueting therein. As for our heretics, however, it is marvellous what storeys upon storeys¹⁶ and what heights upon heights, they have hung up, raised and spread out as a dwelling for each several god of theirs. Even our Creator has had arranged for Him the saloons of Ennius in the fashion of private rooms,¹⁷ with chamber piled upon chamber, and assigned to each god by just as many staircases as there were heresies. The universe, in fact, has been turned into “rooms to let.”¹⁸ Such storeys of the heavens you would imagine to be detached tenements in some happy isle of the blessed,¹⁹ I know not where. There the god even of the Valentinians has his dwelling in the attics. They call him indeed, as to his essence, Αἰῶν τέλειος (Perfect Æon), but in respect of his personality, Προαρχή (Before the Beginning), Ἡ Ἀρχή (The Beginning), and sometimes Bythos (Depth),²⁰ a name which is most unfit for one who dwells in the heights above! They describe him as unbegotten, immense, infinite, invisible, and eternal; as if, when they described him to be such as we know that he ought to be, they straightway prove him to be a being who may be said to have had such an existence even before all things else. I indeed insist upon¹ it that he is such a being; and there is nothing which I detect in beings of this sort more obvious, than that they who are said to have been before all things—things, too, not their own—are found to be behind all things. Let it, however, be granted that this Bythos of theirs existed in the infinite ages of the past in the greatest and profoundest repose, in the extreme rest of a placid and, if I may use the expression, stupid divinity, such as Epicurus has enjoined upon us. And yet, although they would have him be alone, they assign to him a second person in himself and with himself, Ennoea (Thought), which they also call both Charis (Grace) and Sige (Silence). Other things, as it happened, conduced in this most agreeable repose to remind him of the need of by and by producing out of himself the beginning of all things. This he deposits in lieu of seed in the genital region, as it were, of the womb of his Sige. Instantaneous conception is the result: Sige becomes pregnant, and is delivered, of course in silence; and her offspring is Nous (Mind), very like his father and his equal in every respect. In short, he alone is capable of comprehending the measureless and incomprehensible greatness of his father. Accordingly he is even called the Father himself, and the Beginning of all things, and, with great propriety, Monogenes (The Only-begotten). And yet not with absolute propriety, since he is not born alone. For along with him a female also proceeded, whose name was Veritas² (Truth). But how much more suitably might Monogenes be called Protogenes (First begotten), since he was begotten first! Thus Bythos and Sige, Nous and Veritas, are alleged to be the first fourfold team³ of the Valentinian set (of gods)⁴ the parent stock and origin of them all. For immediately when⁵ Nous received the function of a procreation of his own, he too produces out of himself Sermo (the Word) and Vita (the Life). If this latter existed not previously, of course she existed not in Bythos. And a pretty absurdity would it be, if Life existed not in God! However, this offspring also produces fruit, having for its mission the initiation of the universe and the formation of the entire Pleroma: it procreates Homo (Man) and Ecclesia (the Church). Thus you have an Ogdoad, a double Terra, out of the conjunctions of males and females—the cells⁶ (so to speak) of the primordial Æons, the fraternal nuptials of the Valentinian gods, the simple originals⁷ of heretical sanctity and majesty, a rabble⁸—shall I say of criminals⁹ or of deities?¹⁰—at any rate, the fountain of all ulterior fecundity.

CAP. VII. [1] primus omnium Ennius poeta RomaNous “caenacula maxima caeli” simpliciter pronuntiavit elati situs nomine vel quia Iovem illic epulantem legerat apud Homerum. sed haeretici quantas supernitates supernitatum et quantas sublimitates sublimitatum in habitaculum dei sui cuiusque suspenderint extulerint expanderint, mirum est. [2] etiam creatori nostro Enniana caenacula in aedicularum disposita sint forma, aliis atque aliis pergulis superstructis et unicuique deo per totidem scalas distributis, quot haereses fuerint. meritorium fac- tus est mundus. [3] Insulam Feliculam credas tanta tabulata caelorum nescio ubi. illic etiam Valentinianorum deus adsummas tegulas habitat. hunc substantaliter quidem ai0w~na te&leion appellant; personaliter vero propa&tora et proarxh&n etiam Bython--quod in sublimibus habitanti min- ime congruebat. innatum immensum infinitum invisibilem aeternumque definiunt, quasi statim probent esse si talem definiant qualem scimus esse debere. sic et ante omnia fuisse dicatur. [4] sed ut sit expostulo nec aliud magis in hiuismodi denoto quam quod post omnia inveniuntur qui ante omnia fuisse dicuntur, et quidem non sua. sit itaque Bythos iste infinitis retro aevis in maxima et altissima quiete, in otio plurimo placidae et--ut ita dixerim--stupentis divinitatis, qualem iussit Epicurus. [5] et tamen quem solum volunt, dant ei secundam in ipso et cum ipso personam, Ennonian, quam et Charin et Sigen insuper nominant. et forte accedunt in illa commendatissima quiete movere eum de proferendo tandem initio rerum a semetipso. hoc vice seminis in Sige sua velunt in genitablibus vulvae locis collocat. suscipit illa statim et praegnans efficitur et parit (utique silentio) Sige. et quem parit? Nous est simillimum Patri et parem per omnia. [6] denique solus hic capere sufficit immensam illam et incomprehensibilem magnitudinem Patris. ita et ipse Pater dicitur et initium omnium et proprie Monogenes; atquin non proprie siquidem non solus agnoscitur. nam cum illo processit et femina cui Veritas nomen. Monogenes quia prior genitus quanto congruentius Protogenes vocaretur. ergo Bythos et Sige, Nous et Veritas prima quadriga defenditur Valentinianae factionis, matrix et origo cunctorum. namque ibidem Nous simul accepit prolationis suae officium, emittit et ipse ex semetipso Sermonem et Vitam--[7]quae si retro non erat, utique nec in Bytho; et quale est ut in deo vita non fuerit! sed et haec suboles, ad initium universitatis et formati Pleromatis totius emissa, facit fructum: Hominem et Ecclesiam procreat. [8] habes ogdoadem, tetradem duplicem ex coniugationibus masculorum et feminarum, cellas ut ita dixerim primordialium Aeonum, fraterna conubia Valentinianorum, deorum, census omnis sanctitatis et maiestatis haereticae, nescio criminum an numinum turbam, certe fontem reliquae fecunditatis.

CHAP. VIII.—THE NAMES AND DESCENT OF OTHER ÆONS; FIRST HALF A SCORE, THEN TWO MORE, AND ULTIMATELY A DOZEN BESIDES. THESE THIRTY CONSTITUTE THE PLEROMA. BUT WHY BE SO CAPRICIOUS AS TO STOP AT THIRTY?

For, behold, when the second Tetrad—Sermo and Vita, Homo and Ecclesia¹¹—had borne fruit to the Father’s glory, having an intense desire of themselves to present to the Father something similar of their own, they bring other issue into being¹²—conjugal of course, as the others were¹³—by the union of the twofold nature. On the one hand, Sermo and Vita pour out at a birth a half-score of Æons; on the other hand, Homo and Ecclesia produce a couple more, so furnishing an equipoise to their parents, since this pair with the other ten make up just as many as they did themselves procreate. I now give the names of the half-score whom I have mentioned: Bythios (Profound) and Mixis (Mixture), Ageratos (Never old) and Henosis (Union), Autophyes (Essential nature) and Hedone (Pleasure), Acinetos (Immoveable) and Syncrasis (Commixture,) Monogenes (Only-begotten) and Macaria (Happiness). On the other hand, these will make up the number twelve (to which I have also referred): Paracletus (Comforter) and Pistis (Faith), Patricas (Paternal) and Elpis (Hope), Metricos (Maternal) and Agape (Love), Ainos (Praise)¹⁴ and Synesis (Intelligence), Ecclesiasticus (Son of Ecclesia) and Macariotes (Blessedness), Theletus¹⁵ (Perfect) and Sophia (Wisdom). I cannot help¹⁶ here quoting from a like example what may serve to show the import of these names. In the schools of Carthage there was once a certain Latin rhetorician, an excessively cool fellow,¹ whose name was Phosphorus. He was personating a man of valour, and wound up² with saying, “I come to you, excellent citizens, from battle, with victory for myself, with happiness for you, full of honour, covered with glory, the favourite of fortune, the greatest of men, decked with triumph.” And forthwith his scholars begin to shout for the school of Phosphorus, φεῦ³ (ah!) Are you a believer in⁴ Fortunata, and Hedone, and Acinetus, and Theletus? Then shout out your φεῦ for the school of Ptolemy.⁵ This must be that mystery of the Pleroma, the fulness of the thirty-fold divinity. Let us see what special attributes⁶ belong to these numbers—four, and eight, and twelve. Meanwhile with the number thirty all fecundity ceases. The generating force and power and desire of the Æons is spent.⁷ As if there were not still left some strong rennet for curdling numbers.⁸ As if no other names were to be got out of the page’s hall!⁹ For why are there not sets of fifty and of a hundred procreated? Why, too, are there no comrades and boon companions¹⁰ named for them?

CAP. VIII. [1] ecce enim secunda tetras, Sermo et Vita, Homo et Ecclesia, quod in Patris gloria fruticasset huic numero gestientes et ipsi tale quid Patri de suo offere, alios ebulliunt fetus-proinde coniugales per copulam utriusque naturae: hac et Sermo et Vita decuriam Aeonum simul fundunt; illac Homo et Ecclesia duos amplius aequiperando parentibus, quia et ipso duo cum illis decem tot efficiunt quot ipsi procreaverunt. [2] reddo nunc nomina quos decuriam dixi: Bythios et Mixis, Ageratos et Henosis, Autophyes et Hedone, Acinetos et Syncrasis, Monogenes et Macaria. contra duodenariusnumerus hi erunt: Paracletus et Pistis, Patricos et Elpis, Metricos et Agape, AeiNous et Synesis, Ecclesiasticus et Macariotes, Theletus et Sophia. cogor hic, quid ista nomina desiderent, proferre de pari exemplo: [3] in scholis Karthaginensibus fuit quidam frigidissimus rhetor Latinus, Phosphorus nomine. cum virum fortem peroraret “venio (inquit) ad vos, optimi cives, de proelio cum Victoria mea, cum Felicitate vestra, Ampliatus Gloriosus Fortunatus Max- imus Triumphalis.” et scholastici statim familiae Phosphori feu~ acclamant. [4] audisti Fortunatam et Hedonen et Acinetum et Theletum; acclama familiae Ptolomaei feu~. hoc erit Pleroma illud arcanum, divinitatis tricenariae plenitudo. videamus quae sint istorum privilegia numerorum-- quaternarii et octonarii et duodenarii. [5] interim in tricenario fecunditas tota deficit; castrata est vis et potestas et libido genitalis Aeonum--quasi non et numerorum tanta adhuc coagula superessent et nulla alia de paedagogio nomina. quare enim non et quinquaginta et centum procreantur? quare non et Sterceiae et Syntrophi nominantur?

CHAP. IX.—OTHER CAPRICIOUS FEATURES IN THE SYSTEM. THE ÆONS UNEQUAL IN ATTRIBUTES. THE SUPERIORITY OF NUS; THE VAGARIES OF SOPHIA RESTRAINED BY HOROS. GRAND TITLES BORNE BY THIS LAST POWER

But, further, there is an “acceptance¹¹ of persons,” inasmuch as Nous alone among them all enjoys the knowledge of the immeasurable Father, joyous and exulting, while they of course pine in sorrow. To be sure, Nus, so far as in him lay, both wished and tried to impart to the others also all that he had learnt about the greatness and incomprehensibility of the Father; but his mother, Sige, interposed—she who (you must know) imposes silence even on her own beloved heretics;¹² although they affirm that this is done at the will of the Father, who will have all to be inflamed with a longing after himself. Thus, while they are tormenting themselves with these internal desires, while they are burning with the secret longing to know the Father, the crime is almost accomplished. For of the twelve Æons which Homo and Ecclesia had produced, the youngest by birth (never mind the solecism, since Sophia (Wisdom) is her name), unable to restrain herself, breaks away without the society of her husband Theletus, in quest of the Father and contracts that kind of sin which had indeed arisen amongst the others who were conversant with Nous but had flowed on to this Æon,¹³ that is, to Sophia; as is usual with maladies which, after arising in one part of the body, spread abroad their infection to some other limb. The fact is,¹⁴ under a pretence of love to the Father, she was overcome with a desire to rival Nus, who alone rejoiced in the knowledge of the Father.¹⁵ But when Sophia, straining after impossible aims, was disappointed of her hope, she is both overcome with difficulty, and racked with affection. Thus she was all but swallowed up by reason of the charm and toil (of her research),¹⁶ and dissolved into the remnant of his substance;¹⁷ nor would there have been any other alternative for her than perdition, if she had not by good luck fallen in with Horos (Limit). He too had considerable power. He is the foundation of the great¹⁸ universe, and, externally, the guardian thereof. To him they give the additional names of Crux (Cross), and Lytrotes (Redeemer,) and Carpistes (Emancipator).¹⁹ When Sophia was thus rescued from danger, and tardily persuaded, she relinquished further research after the Father, found repose, and laid aside all her excitement,²⁰ or Enthymesis (Desire,) along with the passion which had come over her.

CAP. IX. [1] sed et hoc exceptio personarum est quod solus ille Nous ex omnibus immensi Patris fruitur notione guadens et exultans, illis utique maerentibus. plane Nous et quantum in ipso fuit et voluerat et temptaverat ceteris quoque communicare quae norat, quantus et quam incomprehensibilis Pater. sed inter- cessit mater Sige, illa scilicet quae et ipsis haereticis suis tacere praescribit, etsi de Patris nutu aiunt factum volentis omnes in desiderium sui accendi. [2] itaque dum macerantur intra semetipsos, dum tacita cupidine cognoscendi Patrem uruntur, paene scelus factum est. namque ex illis duodecim Aeonibus quos Homo et Ecclesia ediderant novissima natu Aeon--viderit soloecismus,Sophia nomen est--incontinentia sui sine coniugis Theleti societate prorumpit in patrem inquirere et geNous contrahit vitii quod exorsum quidem fuerat in illis aliis, qui circa Nun, in hunc autem, id est in Sophiam, derivarat, ut solent vitia in corpore alibi connata in aliud membrum perniciem suam efflare. [3] sed enim sub praetexto dilectionis in Patrem aemulatio superabat in Nun solum de Patre gaudentem. ut vero impossibilia contendens Sophia frustra erat et vincitur difficultate et extenditur affectione; modico abfuit prae vi dulcendinis et laboris devorari et in reliquam substantiam dissolvi. nec alias quam pereundo cessasset nisi bono fato in Horon incur- sasset (quaedam et huic vis est: fundamentum, universitatis illius extrinsecus custos) quem et Crucem appellant et Lytrotem et Carpisten. [4] ita Sophia periculo exempta et tarde persuasa de inclinata investigatione Patris, conquievit et totam Enthymesin (animationem) cum passione quae insuper accederat exposuit.

CHAP. X.—ANOTHER ACCOUNT OF THE STRANGE ABERRATIONS OF SOPHIA, AND THE RESTRAINING SERVICES OF HOROS. SOPHIA WAS NOT HERSELF, AFTER ALL, EJECTED FROM THE PLEROMA, BUT ONLY HER ENTHYMESIS

But some dreamers have given another account of the aberration²¹ and recovery of Sophia. After her vain endeavours, and the disappointment of her hope, she was, I suppose, disfigured with paleness and emaciation, and that neglect of her beauty which was natural to one who¹ was deploring the denial of the Father,—an affliction which was no less painful than his loss. Then, in the midst of all this sorrow, she by herself alone, without any conjugal help, conceived and bare a female offspring. Does this excite your surprise? Well, even the hen has the power of being able to bring forth by her own energy.² They say, too, that among vultures there are only females, which become parents alone. At any rate, she was another without aid from a male, and she began at last to be afraid that her end was even at hand. She was all in doubt about the treatment³ of her case, and took pains at self-concealment. Remedies could nowhere be found. For where, then, should we have tragedies and comedies, from which to borrow the process of exposing what has been born without connubial modesty? While the thing is in this evil plight, she raises her eyes, and turns them to the Father. Having, however, striven in vain, as her strength was failing her, she falls to praying. Her entire kindred also supplicates in her behalf, and especially Nus. Why not? What was the cause of so vast an evil? Yet not a single casualty⁴ befell Sophia without its effect. All her sorrows operate. Inasmuch as all that conflict of hers contributes to the origin of Matter. Her ignorance, her fear, her distress, become substances. Hereupon the Father by and by, being moved, produces in his own image, with a view to these circumstances⁵ the Horos whom we have mentioned above; (and this he does) by means of Monogenes Nus, a male-female (Æon), because there is this variation of statement about the Father’s⁶ sex. They also go on to tell us that Horos is likewise called Metagogius, that is, “a conductor about,” as well as Horothetes (Setter of Limits). By his assistance they declare that Sophia was checked in her illicit courses, and purified from all evils, and henceforth strengthened (in virtue), and restored to the conjugal state: (they add) that she indeed remained within the bounds⁷ of the Pleroma, but that her Enthymesis, with the accruing⁸ Passion, was banished by Horos, and crucified and cast out from the Pleroma,—even as they say, Malum foras! (Evil, avaunt!) Still, that was a spiritual essence, as being the natural impulse of an Æon, although without form or shape, inasmuch as it had apprehended nothing, and therefore was pronounced to be an infirm and feminine fruit.⁹

CAP X. [1] sed quidam exitum Sophia et restitutionem aliter somniaver- unt: post inritos conatus et spei deiectionem deformatam eam; (pallore, credo, et macie et incuria. proprie utique patrem non miNous denegatum dolebat quam amissum.) dehinc in illo maerore ex semetipsa sola nulla opera coniugii concepit et procreat feminam. miraris hoc? et gallina sortita est de suo parere, sed et vultures feminas tantum aiunt. [2] et tamen sine masculo mater et metuere postremo ne finis quoque insisteret, haerere de ratione casus, curare de occultatione. remedia nusquam: ubi enim iam tragoediae atque comoediae a quibus forma mutuaretur exponendi quod citra pudorem natum? dum in malis res est, suscipit convertit ad patrem, sed incassum enisa et vires deserebant, in preces succedit. tota enim propinquitas pro ea supplicat, vel maxime Nus. (quid? in causa mali tanti?) nullus tamen Sophiae exitus vacuit: [3] omnes aerumnae eius operantur, siquidem et illa tunc conflictatio in materiae originem pervenit. ignorantia, pavor, maeror substantiae fiunt. ibi demum pater motus aliquando quem supra diximus Horon per Monogenem Nun in haec promit in imagine sua femina-marem, quia et de patris sexu ita variant. adiciunt autem Horon etiam Metagogea (circumductorem) vocari et Horotheten. [4] huius praedicant opera et repressam ab inlicitis et purgatam a malis et dienceps confirmatam Sophiam et coniugio restitutam, et ipsam quidem in Pleromatis censu remansisse, Enthymesin vero eius et illam appendicem passionem ab Horo relegatam et crucifixam et extra eum factam--[5]malum, quod aiunt, foras. spiritalem tamen substantiam illam ut naturalem quendam impetum Aeonis sed informem et inspeciatam, quateNous nihil adprehendisset, ideoque fructum infirmum et feminam pronuntiatam.

CHAP. XI.—THE PROFANE ACCOUNT GIVEN OF THE ORIGIN OF CHRIST AND THE HOLY GHOST STERNLY REBUKED. AN ABSURDITY RESPECTING THE ATTAINMENT OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD ABLY EXPOSED

Accordingly, after the banishment of the Enthymesis, and the return of her mother Sophia to her husband, the (illustrious) Monogenes, the Nous,¹⁰ released indeed from all care and concern of the Father, in order that he might consolidate all things, and defend and at last fix the Pleroma, and so prevent any concussion of the kind again, once more¹¹ emits a new couple¹² (blasphemously named). I should suppose the coupling of two males to be a very shameful thing, or else the one¹³ must be a female, and so the male is discredited¹⁴ by the female. One divinity is assigned in the case of all these, to procure a complete adjustment among the Æons. Even from this fellowship in a common duty two schools actually arise, two chairs,¹⁵ and, to some extent,¹⁶ the inauguration of a division in the doctrine of Valentinus. It was the function of Christ to instruct the Æons in the nature of their conjugal relations¹⁷ (you see what the whole thing was, of course!), and how to form some guess about the unbegotten,¹⁸ and to give them the capacity of generating within themselves the knowledge of the Father; it being impossible to catch the idea of him, or comprehend him, or, in short, even to enjoy any perception of him, either by the eye or the ear, except through Monogenes (the Only-begotten). Well, I will even grant them what they allege about knowing the Father, so that they do not refuse us (the attainment of) the same. I would rather point out what is perverse in their doctrine, how they were taught that the incomprehensible part of the Father was the cause of their own perpetuity,¹⁹ whilst that which might be comprehended of him was the reason¹ of their generation and formation. Now by these several positions² the tenet, I suppose, is insinuated, that it is expedient for God not to be apprehended, on the very ground that the incomprehensibility of His character is the cause of perpetuity; whereas what in Him is comprehensible is productive, not of perpetuity, but rather of conditions which lack perpetuity—namely, nativity and formation. The Son, indeed, they made capable of comprehending the Father. The manner in which He is comprehended, the recently produced Christ fully taught them. To the Holy Spirit, however, belonged the special gifts, whereby they, having been all set on a complete par in respect of their earnestness to learn, should be enabled to offer up their thanksgiving, and be introduced to a true tranquillity.

[1] igitur post Enthymesin extorrem et matrem eius Sophiam coniugi reducem ille iterum Monogenes ille Nus, otiosus plane de Patris cura atque prospectu, solidandis rebus et Pleromati muniendo iamque figendo ne qua eiusmodi rursus concussio incuteret, novam excludit copulationem, Christum et Spiritum Sanctum, turpissimam putem duorum masculorum--[2]aut femina erit Spiritus Sanctus et vulneratur a femina masculus. muNous enim his datur unum: procurare concinnationem Aeonum et ab eius officii societate duae scholae protinus, duae cathedrae, inauguratio quaedam dividendae doctrinae Valentini. Christi erat inducere Aeonas naturam coniugiorum--vides quam rem plane--et Innati coniectationem et idoneos efficere generandi in se agnitionem Patris, quod capere eum non sit neque comprehendere non visu denique non auditu compotiri eius nisi per Monogenem. [3] et tamen tolerabo quod ita discunt patrem nosse--ne nos et illud! magis denotabo doctrinae perversitatem quod docebantur incomprehensibile quidem Patris causam esse perpetuitatis ipsorum, comprehensibile vero eius generationis illorum et formationis esse rationem. hac enim dispositione illud, opinor, insinuatur expedire deum non appre-bendi siquidem inapprehensibile eius perpetuitatis est causa. (4) apprehensibile autem non perpetuitatis, sed nativitatis et formationis, egentium perpetuitatis. [4] filium autem constituunt apprehensibile patris; quomodo tamen apprehendatur tum prolatus Christus edocuit. Spiritus vero Sancti propria ut de doctrinae studio omnes peraequati gratiarum actionem prosegui nossent et veram inducerentur quietem.

CHAP. XII.—THE STRANGE JUMBLE OF THE PLEROMA. THE FRANTIC DELIGHT OF THE MEMBERS THEREOF. THEIR JOINT CONTRIBUTION OF PARTS SET FORTH WITH HUMOROUS IRONY

Thus they are all on the self-same footing in respect of form and knowledge, all of them having become what each of them severally is; none being a different being, because they are all what the others are.³ They are all turned into⁴ Nouses, into Homos, into Theletuses;⁵ and so in the case of the females, into Siges, into Zoes, into Ecclesias, into Forunatas, so that Ovid would have blotted out his own Metamorphoses if he had only known our larger one in the present day. Straightway they were reformed and thoroughly established, and being composed to rest from the truth, they celebrate the Father in a chorus⁶ of praise in the exuberance of their joy. The Father himself also revelled⁷ in the glad feeling; of course, because his children and grandchildren sang so well. And why should he not revel in absolute delight? Was not the Pleroma freed (from all danger)? What ship’s captain⁸ fails to rejoice even with indecent frolic? Every day we observe the uproarious ebullitions of sailors’ joys.⁹ Therefore, as sailors always exult over the reckoning they pay in common, so do these Æons enjoy a similar pleasure, one as they now all are in form, and, as I may add,¹⁰ in feeling too. With the concurrence of even their new brethren and masters,¹¹ they contribute into one common stock the best and most beautiful thing with which they are severally adorned. Vainly, as I suppose. For if they were all one by reason by the above-mentioned thorough equalization, there was no room for the process of a common reckoning,¹² which for the most part consists of a pleasing variety. They all contributed the one good thing, which they all were. There would be, in all probability, a formal procedure¹³ in the mode or in the form of the very equalization in question. Accordingly, out of the donation which they contributed¹⁴ to the honour and glory of the Father, they jointly fashion¹⁵ the most beautiful constellation of the Pleroma, and its perfect fruit, Jesus. Him they also surname¹⁶ Soter (Saviour) and Christ, and Sermo (Word) after his ancestors;¹⁷ and lastly Omnia (All Things), as formed from a universally culled nosegay,¹⁸ like the jay of Æsop, the Pandora of Hesiod, the bowl¹⁹ of Accius, the honey-cake of Nestor, the miscellany of Ptolemy. How much nearer the mark, if these idle title-mongers had called him Pancarpian, after certain Athenian customs.²⁰ By way of adding external honour also to their wonderful puppet, they produce for him a body-guard of angels of like nature. If this be their mutual condition, it may be all right; if, however, they are consubstantial with Soter (for I have discovered how doubtfully the case is stated), where will be his eminence when surrounded by attendants who are co-equal with himself?

CAP. XII. [1] itaque omnes et forma et scientia peraequantur facti omnes quod unusquisque; nemo aliud quia alteri omnes. refunduntur in Nun omnes in Homines, in Theletos, aeque feminae in Sigas, in Zoas, in Ecclesias, in Fortunatas, ut Ovidius Metamorphoses suas delevisset si hodie maiorem cognovisset. [2] exinde refecti sunt et constabiliti sunt et in requiem ex veritate compositi magno cum gaudii fructu hymnis Patrem concinunt. diffundebatur et ipse laetitia et utique bene cantantibus filiis, nepotibus. quidni diffunderetur omni iocunditate, Pleromate liberato. quis nauclerus non etiam cum dedecore laetatur? videmus cotidie nauticorum lascivias gaudiorum. [3] itaque ut nautae ad symbolam semper exultant, tale aliquid et Aeones; unum iam omnes etiam forma nedum sententia, convenientibus ipsis quoque novis fratribus et magistris Christo et Spirito Sancto, quod optimum atque pulcherrimum unusquisque florebat conferunt in medium. vane, opinor; si enim unum erant omnes ex supra dicta peraequatione, vacabat symbolae ratio quae ferme ex varietatis gratia constat. [4] unum omnes bonum conferebant quod omnes erant; de modo forsitan fuerit ratio aut de forma ipsius iam peraequationis. igitur ex aere colla- ticio, quod aiunt, in honorem et gloriam Patris pulcherrimum Pleromatis sidus fructumque perfectum compingunt Iesum. eum cognominant Soterem et Christum et Sermonem de patritis et Omnia iam ut ex omnium defloratione constructum: Graculum Aesopi, Pandoram Hesiodi, Acci Patinam, Nestoris Cocetum, Miscellaneam Ptolomaei. [5] quam proprius fuit de aliquibus Osciae scurris Pancapipannirapiam vocari a tam otiosis auctoribus nominum. ut autem tantum sigillarium extrinsecus quoque inornasset, satellites ei angelos proferunt par genus; si inter se, potest fiere, si vero Soteri consubstantivos-ambigue enim positura inveni--quae erit eminentia eius inter satellites coaequales?

CHAP. XIII.—FIRST PART OF THE SUBJECT, TOUCHING THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PLEROMA, BRIEFLY RECAPITULATED. TRANSITION TO THE OTHER PART, WHICH IS LIKE A PLAY OUTSIDE THE CURTAIN

In this series, then, is contained the first emanation of Æons, who are alike born, and are married, and produce offspring: there are the most dangerous fortunes of Sophia in her ardent longing for the Father, the most seasonable help of Horos, the expiation of her Enthymesis and accruing Passion, the instruction of Christ and the Holy Spirit, their tutelar reform of the Æons, the piebald ornamentation of Sorer, the consubstantial retinue¹ of the angels. All that remains, according to you, is the fall of the curtain and the clapping of hands.² What remains in my opinion, however, is, that you should hear and take heed. At all events, these things are said to have been played out within the company of the Pleroma, the first scene of the tragedy. The rest of the play, however, is beyond the curtain—I mean outside of the Pleroma. And yet if it be such within the bosom of the Father, within the embrace of the guardian Horos, what must it be outside, in free space,³ where God did not exist?

CAP. XIII. [1] continet hic igitur ordo primam professionem pariter et nascentium et nubentium et generatium Aeonum, Sophiae ex desi- derio Patris periculosissimum casum. Hori oportunissimum auxilium, Enthymeseos et coniunctae Passionis expiatum, Christi et Spiritu Sancti paedagogatum, Aeonum tutelarem reformatum, Soteris pavoninum ornatum, Angelorum comparaticum antistatum. [2] quod superest, inquis, vos valete et plaudite. immo quod superest, inquam, vos erudite et proicite.ceterum haec intra coetum Pleromatis decucurisse dicuntur prima tragoediae scaena, alia autem trans siparium coturnatio est--extra Pleroma dico. et tamen hic exitus sub sinu Patris intra ambitum Hori custodis; qualis extra iam inlibero ubi deus non est?

CHAP. XIV.—THE ADVENTURES OF ACHAMOTH OUTSIDE THE PLEROMA. THE MISSION OF CHRIST IN PURSUIT OF HER. HER LONGING FOR CHRIST. HOROS’ HOSTILITY TO HER. HER CONTINUED SUFFERING

For Enthymesis, or rather Achamoth—because by this inexplicable⁴ name alone must she be henceforth designated—when in company with the vicious Passion, her inseparable companion, she was expelled to places devoid of that light which is the substance of the Pleroma, even to the void and empty region of Epicurus, she becomes wretched also because of the place of her banishment. She is indeed without either form or feature, even an untimely and abortive production. Whilst she is in this plight,⁵ Christ descends from⁶ the heights, conducted by Horos, in order to impart form to the abortion, out of his own energies, the form of substance only, but not of knowledge also. Still she is left with some property. She has restored to her the odour of immortality, in order that she might, under its influence, be overcome with the desire of better things than belonged to her present plight.⁷ Having accomplished His merciful mission, not without the assistance of the Holy Spirit, Christ returns to the Pleroma. It is usual out of an abundance of things⁸ for names to be also forthcoming. Enthymesis came from action;⁹ whence Achamoth came is still a question; Sophia emanates from the Father, the Holy Spirit from an angel. She entertains a regret for Christ immediately after she had discovered her desertion by him. Therefore she hurried forth herself, in quest of the light of Him Whom she did not at all discover, as He operated in an invisible manner; for how else would she make search for His light, which was as unknown to her as He was Himself? Try, however, she did, and perhaps would have found Him, had not the self-same Horos, who had met her mother so opportunely, fallen in with the daughter quite as unseasonably, so as to exclaim at her iao! just as we hear the cry “Porro Quirites” (“Out of the way, Romans!”), or else “Fidem Cæsaris!” (“By the faith of Cæsar!”), whence (as they will have it) the name iao comes to be found is the Scriptures.¹⁰ Being thus hindered from proceeding further, and being unable to surmount¹¹ the Cross, that is to say, Horos, because she had not yet practised herself in the part of Catullus’ Laureolus,¹² and given over, as it were, to that passion of hers in a manifold and complicated mesh, she began to be afflicted with every impulse thereof, with sorrow,—because she had not accomplished her enterprise, with fear,—lest she should lose her life, even as she had lost the light, with consternation, and then with ignorance. But not as her mother (did she suffer this), for she was an Æon. Hers, however, was a worse suffering, considering her condition; for another tide of emotion still overwhelmed her, even of conversion to the Christ, by Whom she had been restored to life, and had been directed¹³ to this very conversion.

CAP. XIV.[1] namque Enthymesis sive iam Achamoth, quod abhinc scripta hoc solo ininterpretabili nomine, ut cum vitio individuae passionis explosa est in loca luminis aliena, quod Pleromatis res est, in vacuum atque inane illud Epicuri, miserabilis etiam de loco est. certe nec forma nec facies ulla, defectiva scilicet et abortiva genitura. dum ita rerum habet, flectitur a superioribus Christus, deducitur per Horon aborsum ut illud informet de suis viribus solius substantiae, non etiam scientiae, forma. [2] et tamen cum aliquo peculio relinquitur, id erat odor incorruptibilitatis quo compos se casus sui potiorum desiderio suppararetur. hac misericordia functus non sine Spiritus Sancti societate recurrit Christus in Pleroma. usus est rerum ex liberalitatibus quoque nomina accedere: Enthymesis de actu fuit, Achamoth unde adhuc quaeritur, Sophia de matre manat, Spiritus Sanctus ex angelo. [3] accipit Christi a quo derelictam se statim senserat desiderium. itaque prosiluit et ipsa lumen eius inquirere. quem si omnino non noverat ut invisibiliter operatum quomodo lumen eius ignotum cum ipso requirebat? tamen temptavit et fortasse adprehendisset si non idem Horos qui matri eius tam prospere venerat nunc tam importune filiae occurrisset ut etiam inclamaverit in eam “Iao”--quasi “porro quirites” aut “fidem Caesaris.” [4] inde invenitur “Iao” in scripturis. ita depulsa quomiNous pergeret nec habens supervolare Crucem, id est Horon, quia nullum Catulli Laureolum fuerit exercitata, ut destituta ut passioni illi suae intricata multiplici atque perplexae, omni genere eius coepit adfligi: maerore quod non perpetrasset inceptum, metu ne sicut luce ita et vita orbaretur, tum ignorantia. nec ut mater eius, illa enim Aeon, at haec pro conditione deterius insurgente adhuc et alio fluctu, conversionis scilicet in Christum a quo vivificata fuerat et in hanc ipsam conversionem temperata.

CHAP. XV.—STRANGE ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF MATTER, FROM THE VARIOUS AFFECTIONS OF ACHAMOTH. THE WATERS FROM HER TEARS; LIGHT FROM HER SMILE

Well, now, the Pythagoreans may learn, the Stoics may know, Plato himself (may discover), whence Matter, which they will have to be unborn, derived both its origin and substance for all this pile of the world—(a mystery) which not even the renowned¹⁴ Mercurius Trismegistus, master (as he was) of all physical philosophy, thought out.¹ You have just heard of “Conversion,” one element in the “Passion” (we have so often mentioned). Out of this the whole life of the world,² and even that of the Demiurge himself, our God, is said to have had its being. Again, you have heard of “sorrow” and “fear.” From these all other created things³ took their beginning. For from her⁴ tears flowed the entire mass of waters. From this circumstance one may form an idea of the calamity⁵ which she encountered, so vast were the kinds of the tears wherewith she overflowed. She had salt tear-drops, she had bitter, and sweet, and warm, and cold, and bituminous, and ferruginous, and sulphurous, and even⁶ poisonous, so that the Nonacris exuded therefrom which killed Alexander; and the river of the Lyncestæ⁷ flowed from the same source, which produces drunkenness; and the Salmacis⁸ was derived from the same source, which renders men effeminate. The rains of heaven Achamoth whimpered forth,⁹ and we on our part are anxiously employed in saving up in our cisterns the very wails and tears of another. In like manner, from the “consternation” and “alarm” (of which we have also heard), bodily elements were derived. And yet amidst so many circumstances of solitude, in this vast prospect of destitution, she occasionally smiled at the recollection of the sight of Christ, and from this smile of joy light flashed forth. How great was this beneficence of Providence, which induced her to smile, and all that we might not linger for ever in the dark! Nor need you feel astonished how¹⁰ from her joy so splendid an element¹¹ could have beamed upon the world, when from her sadness even so necessary a provision¹² flowed forth for man. O illuminating smile! O irrigating tear! And yet it might now have acted as some alleviation amidst the horror of her situation; for she might have shaken off all the obscurity thereof as often as she had a mind to smile, even not to be obliged to turn suppliant to those who had deserted her.¹³

CAP. XV. [1] age nunc discant Pythagorici, agnoscant Stoici, Plato ipse, unde materiam quam innatam volunt et originem et substantiam traxerit in omnem hanc struem mundi, quod nec Mercurius ille Trismegistus, magister omnium physicorum, recogitavit. [2] audisti conversionem geNous aliud passionis. ex hac omnis anima huius mundi dicitur constitisse, etiam ipsius Demiurgi, id est dei nostri. audisti maerorem et timorem; ex his initiata sunt cetera; nam ex lacrimis eius universa aquarum natura manavit. [3] hinc aestimandum quem exitum duxerit, quantis lacrimarum generibus inundaverit. habuit et salsas,habuit et amaras et dulces et calidas et frigidas guttas et bituminosas et ferruginantes et sulphurantes, utique et venenatas ut et Nonacris inde sudaverit quae Alexandrum occidit, et Lyncestarum inde defluxerit quae ebrios efficit, et Salmacis inde se solverit quae masculos molles. [4] caelestes imbres pipiavit Achamoth et nos in cisternis etiam alienos luctus et lacrimas servare curamus, proinde ex consternatione et pavore corporalia elementa ducta sunt. et tamen in tanta circumstantia solitudinis, in tanto circumspectu destitutionis ridebat interdum qua conspecti Christi recordans. eodem gaudii risu lumen effulsit. [5] cuius hoc providentiae beneficium! quae illam ridere cogebat idcirco ne semper nos in tenebris moraremur. nec obstupescas quin laetitia eius tam splendidum elementum radiaverit mundo cum maestitia quoque eius tam necessarium instrumentum defuerit saeculo. o risum illuminatorem! o fletum rigatorem! et tamen poterat remedio iam agere cum illius loci horrore-omnem enim obscuritatem eius discussisset quotiens ridere voluisset--vel ne cogeretur desertores suos supplicare.

CHAP. XVI.—ACHAMOTH PURIFIED FROM ALL IMPURITIES OF HER PASSION BY THE PARACLETE, ACTING THROUGH SOTER, WHO OUT OF THE ABOVE-MENTIONED IMPURITIES ARRANGES MATTER, SEPARATING ITS EVIL FROM THE BETTER QUALITIES

She, too, resorts to prayers, after the manner of her mother. But Christ, Who now felt a dislike to quit the Pleroma, appoints the Paraclete as his deputy. To her, therefore, he despatches Soter,¹⁴ (who must be the same as Jesus, to whom the Father imparted the supreme power over the whole body of the Æons, by subjecting them all to him, so that “by him,” as the apostle says, “all things were created”¹⁵), with a retinue and cortege of contemporary angels, and (as one may suppose) with the dozen fasces. Hereupon Achamoth, being quite struck with the pomp of his approach, immediately covered herself with a veil, moved at first with a dutiful feeling of veneration and modesty; but afterwards she surveys him calmly, and his prolific equipage.¹⁶ With such energies as she had derived from the contemplation, she meets him with the salutation, Κύριε, χαῖρε (“Hail, Lord”)! Upon this, I suppose, he receives her, confirms and conforms her in knowledge, as well as cleanses¹⁷ her from all the outrages of Passion, without, however, utterly severing them, with an indiscriminateness like that which had happened in the casualties which befell her mother. For such vices as had become inveterate and confirmed by practice he throws together; and when he had consolidated them in one mass, he fixes them in a separate body, so as to compose the corporeal condition of Matter, extracting out of her inherent, incorporeal passion such an aptitude of nature¹⁸ as might qualify it to attain to a reciprocity of bodily substances,¹⁹ which should emulate one another, so that a twofold condition of the substances might be arranged; one full of evil through its faults, the other susceptible of passion from conversion. This will prove to be Matter, which has set us in battle array against Hermogenes, and all others who presume to teach that God made all things out of Matter, not out of nothing.

CAP. XVI. [1] convertitur enim ad preces et ipsa more materno, sed Christus quem iam pigebat extra Pleroma proficisci vicarium praeficit. Paracletum Soterem (hic erit Iesus largito et Patre universorum Aeonum summam potestatem subiciendis eis omnibus uti in ipso secundum Apostolum omnia conderentur) ad eam emittit cum officio atque comitatu coaetaneorum angelorum; credas et cum duodecim fascibus. [2] ibidem adventu pompatico eius concussa Achamoth protiNous velamentum sibi obduxit ex officio primo venerationis et verecundiae. dehinc contemplatur eum fructiferumque suggestum; quibus inde conceperat viribus occurit illi ku&rie xai=re. hic opinor susceptam ille confirmat atque conformat agnitione iam et ab omnibus iniuriis passionis expumicat non eadem neglegentia in exterminium discre- tis quae acciderat in casibus matris. [3] sed enim exercitata vitia et usu viriosa confudit atque ita massaliter solidata defixit seorsum in materiae incorporalem paraturam commutans ex incorporali passione, indita habilitate atque natura qua pervenire mox posset in aemulas aequiperantias corpulentiarum ut duplex substantiarum conditio ordinaretur: de vitiis pessima, de conversione passionalis. haec erat materia quae nos commisit cum Hermogene ceterisque qui deum ex materia, non ex nihilo, operatum cuncta praesumunt.

CHAP. XVII.—ACHAMOTH IN LOVE WITH THE ANGELS. A PROTEST AGAINST THE LASCIVIOUS FEATURES OF VALENTINIANISM. ACHAMOTH BECOMES THE MOTHER OF THREE NATURES

Then Achamoth, delivered at length from all her evils, wonderful to tell²⁰ goes on and bears fruit with greater results. For warmed with the joy of so great an escape from her unhappy condition, and at the same time heated with the actual contemplation of the angelic luminaries (one is ashamed) to use such language, but there is no other way of expressing one’s meaning), she during the emotion somehow became personally inflamed with desire¹ towards them, and at once grew pregnant with a spiritual conception, at the very image of which the violence of her joyous transport, and the delight of her prurient excitement, had imbibed and impressed upon her. She at length gave birth to an offspring, and then there arose a leash of natures,² from a triad of causes,—one material, arising from her passion; another animal, arising from her conversion; the third spiritual, which had its origin in her imagination.

CAP. XVII. [1] abhinc Achamoth expedita tandem de malis omnibus ecce iam proficit et in opera maiora frugescit. prae gaudio enim tanti ex infelicitate successus concalefacta simulque contemplatione ipsa angelicorum luminum, ut ita dixerim, subfermentata--pudet sed aliter exprimere non est--quodammodo subsuriit intra et ipsa in illos et conceptu statim intumuitspiritali ad imaginem ipsam quam vi laetantis ex laetitia prurientis intentionis imbiberat et sibi intimarat. [2] peperit denique et facta est exinde trinitas generum ex trinitate causarum: unum materiale quod ex passione, aliud animale quod ex conversione, tertium spiritale quod ex imaginatione.

CHAP. XVIII.—BLASPHEMOUS OPINION CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF THE DEMIURGE, SUPPOSED TO BE THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE

Having become a better proficient³ in practical conduct by the authority which, we may well suppose,⁴ accrued to her from her three children, she determined to impart form to each of the natures. The spiritual one, however, she was unable to touch, inasmuch as she was herself spiritual. For a participation in the same nature has, to a very great extent,⁵ disqualified like and consubstantial beings from having superior power over one another. Therefore⁶ she applies herself solely to the animal nature, adducing the instructions of Soter⁷ (for her guidance). And first of all (she does) what cannot be described and read, and heard of, without an intense horror at the blasphemy thereof: she produces this God of ours, the God of all except of the heretics, the Father and Creator⁸ and King of all things, which are inferior to him. For from him do they proceed. If, however, they proceed from him, and not rather from Achamoth, or if only secretly from her, without his perceiving her, he was impelled to all that he did, even like a puppet⁹ which is moved from the outside. In fact, it was owing to this very ambiguity about the personal agency in the works which were done, that they coined for him the mixed name of (Motherly Father),¹⁰ whilst his other appellations were distinctly assigned according to the conditions and positions of his works: so that they call him Father in relation to the animal substances to which they give the place of honour¹¹ on his fight hand; whereas, in respect of the material substances which they banish¹² to his left hand, they name him Demiurgus; whilst his title King designates his authority over both classes, nay over the universe.¹³

CAP. XVIII. [1] hac auctoritate--trium scilicet liberorum--agendis rebus exercitior facta, formare singula genera constituit. sed spiritale quidem non ita potuit attingere ut et ipsa spiritalis; fere enim paria et consubstantiva in alterutrum valere societas naturae negavit. [2] eo animo se unum ad animale convertit prolatis Soteris disciplinis. et primum--quod cum magno horrore blasphemiae et pronuntiandum et legendum est et audiendum--deum fingit hunc nostrum et omnium praeter haereticorum, Patrem et Demiurgem et Regem universorum quae post illum, ab illo enim--si tamen ab illo, et non ab ipsa potius Achamoth a qua occulto, nihil sentiens eius et velut sigillario extrinsecus ductu, in omnem operationem movebatur. [3] denique ex hac personarum in operibus ambiguitate nomen illi Metropatoris miscuerunt distinctis appellationibus ceteris secundum status et situs operum: ut animalium quidem substantiarum quas ad dextram commendant Patrem nuncupant, materialium vero quas ad laevam delegant Demiurgem nominent, Regem autem communiter in universitatem.

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 all¹⁴ it turn out that they were not made by her. For, although they say that Achamoth devised these forms in honour of the Æons, they yet¹⁵ transfer this work to Soter as its author, when they say that he¹⁶ 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 he¹⁷ formed this same Demiurge in imitation¹⁸ of Nous the son of Propator;¹⁹ and whilst the archangels, who were the work of the Demiurge, resembled the other Æons. 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 sketcthing Ptolemy from Valentinus.

CAP. XIX. [1] sed nec nominum proprietas competit proprietati operum de quibus nomina cum deberet illa haec omnia vocitari a qua res agebantur--nisi quod iam nec ab illa! cum enim dicant Achamoth in honorem Aeonum imagines commentatam, rursus hoc in Soterem auctorem detorquent qui per illam sit operatus, ut ipsam quidem imaginem Patris invisibilis et incogniti daret, incognitam licet et invisibilem Demiurgo. eundem autem Demiurgum Nun filium effingeret. Archangeli vero, Demiurgi opus, reliquos Aeonas experimerent. [2] cum imagines audio tantas trium, quaero, non vis nunc ut imagines rideam perversissimi pictoris illorum: feminam Achamoth imaginem Patris, et ignarum matris Demiurgum--multo magis Patris--imaginem Nu non ignorantis Patrem, et angelos famulos simulacra dominorum? hoc est mulum de asino pingere et Ptolomaeum describere de Valentino.

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, founded a new empire—this world (of ours)—by clearing away the confusion and distinguishing the difference between the two substances which severally constituted it,¹ the animal and the material. Out of incorporeal (elements) he constructs bodies, heavy, light, erect² 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 Ogdoad.³ These heavens, however, they consider to be intelligent,⁴ 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 clouds⁵ and shrubs.⁶ Ptolemy remembered perfectly well the prattle of his boyhood,⁷ 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,⁸ is a question which I shall ask afterwards.

CAP. XX. [1] igitur Demiurgus extra Pleromatis limites constitutus in ignominiosa aeterni exilii vastitate novam provinciam condit, hunc mundum, repurgata confusione et distincta diversitate duplici substantiae illius detrusae, animalium et materialium. ex incorporalibus corpora aedificat gravia levia sublimantia et vergentia caelestia atque terrena. tum ipsam caelorum septemplicem scaenam solio desuper suo finit; [2] unde et Sabbatum dictum est ab hebdomade sedis suae et Ogdoada mater Acha-moth ab argumento ogdoadis primigenitalis. caelos autem noerou_j deputant et interdum angelos eos faciunt sicut et ipsum Demiurgum, sicut et Paradisum Archangelum quartum quoniam et hunc supra caelum tertium pangunt, ex cuius virtute sumpserit Adam deversatus illic inter nubeculas et arbusculas. [3] satis meminerat Ptolomaeus puerilium dicibulorum, in mari poma nasci et in arbore pisces; sic et in caelestibus nuceta praesumpsit. operatur Demiurgus ignorans et ideo fortasse non scit arbores in sola terra institui oportere. plane mater sciebat; quidni suggerebat quae et effectum suum ministrabat? sed tantum fastigium filio extruens per ea opera quae illum et patrem et deum et regem ante Valentinianorum ingenia testantur, cur sibi quoque ipsa noluit esse nota, postea quaeram.

CHAP. XXI.—THE VANITY AS WELL AS IGNORANCE OF THE DEMIURGE. ABSURD RESULTS FROM SO IMPERFECT A CONDITION

Meanwhile you must believe⁹ 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,¹⁰ the Demiurge had so little mastery over things,¹¹ on the score,¹² you must know,¹³ 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.”¹⁴ 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?

CAP. XXI. [1] interim tenendum Sophiam cognominari et Terram et Matrem et (quod magis rideas) etiam Spiritum Sanctum quasi marem Terram. ita omnem illi honorem contulerunt feminae, puto et barbam-ne dixerim cetera. alioquin Demiurgus adeo rerum non erat com pos--de animalis scilicet census invalitudine spiritalia accedere--ut se solum ratus contionaretur “ego deus et absque me non est.” [2] certe tamen non fuisse se retro sciebat. ergo et factum intellegebat et factitatorem facti esse quemcumque. quomodo ergo solus sibi videbatur etsi non certus, saltim suspectus de aliquo factitore?

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 them¹⁵ against the devil is the more excusable,¹⁶ even because the peculiarly sordid character of his origin justifies it.¹⁷ For he is supposed by them to have had his origin in that criminal excess¹⁸ of her¹⁹ 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 Munditenens²⁰ (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.

CAP. XXII.[1] tolerabilior infamia est apud illos in diabolum vel quia origo sordidior capit. ex nequitia enim maeroris illius deputatur ex qua angelorum et daemonum et omnium spiritalium malitiarum genituras notant. [2] et tamen diabolum quoque opus Demiurgi adfirmant et Munditenentem appellant et superiorum magis gnarum defendunt ut spiritalem natura quam Demiurgum et animalem. meretur ab illis praelationem cui omnes haere-ses procurantur.

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,²¹ Horos marking off its boundary line. Beneath it, Achamoth occupies the intermediate space for her abode,²² 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 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 ejecting¹ 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 this² in Sophia, I will on my own responsibility³ conjecture that its spark was struck out of the delicate emotions⁴ of her (feverish grief). For you may be quite sure that, amidst all her vexations, she must have had a good deal of fever.⁵

CAP. XXIII.[1] singularium autem potestatum arces his finibus collocant: in summis summitatibus praesidet tricenarius Pleroma Horo signante lineam extremam; inferius illum metatur medietatem Achamoth filium calcans; subest enim Demiurgus in hebdomade sua; [2] magis diabolus in isto nobiscum convenit mundo coelemen- tato et concorporificato, ut supra editum est, ex Sophiae utilissimis casibus, qua nec aerem haberet, reciprocandi spiritus spatium, teneram omnium corporum vestem, colorum omnium iudicem, organum temporum, si non et istum Sophiae maestitia colasset--sicut animalia metus, sicut conversio eius ipsum Demiurgum. [3] his omnibus elementis atque corporibus ignis inflabellatus est. cuius originaiem Sophiae passionem quia nondum ediderunt ego argumentabor motiunculis eius excussam; credas enim illam in tantis vexationibus etiam febricitasse.

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,⁶ 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,⁷ 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,⁸ 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 of skin which is susceptible of sensation.

CAP XXIV. [1] cum talia de deo vel de diis, qualia de homine figmenta? molitus enim mundum Demiurgus ad hominem maNous confert et substantiam ei capit non ex ista, inquiunt, arida quam nos unicam novimus terram--quasi non, etsi arida postmodum, adhuc tamen tunc aquis ante segregatis superstite limo, siccaverit --sed ex invisibili corpore materiae illius scilicet philosophicae de fluxili et fusili eius, quod unde fuerit audeo aestimare quia nusquam est: [2] si enim fusili et fluxile liquoris est qualitas, liquor autem omnis de Sophiae fletibus fluxit, sequitur ut limum ex pituitis et gramis Sophiae constitisse credamus quae lacrimarum proinde sunt faeces, sicut aquarum quod desidet limus est. figulat ita hominem Demiurgas et de afflatu suo animat. sic erit et choicus et animalis ad imaginem et similitudinem factus quadruplex res: ut imago quidem choicus deputetur--materialis scilicet etsi non ex materia Demiurgus; similitudo autem animalis--hoc enim et Demiurgus. [3] habes duos. interim carnalem superficiem postea aiunt choico supertextam et hanc esse pelliceam tunicam ob-noxiam sensui.

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 imagine⁹ 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 principle¹⁰ 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.¹¹ When, therefore, the Demiurge commits to Adam the transmission of his own vital principle,¹² 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 perfection¹³ 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,¹⁴ the flesh from Matter. So that you have a new Geryon here, only a fourfold (rather than a threefold) monster.

CAP. XXV. [1] inerat autem in Achamoth ex substantia Sophiae matris peculium quoddam seminis spiritalis sicut et ipsa; Achamoth in filio Demiurgo sequestraverat ne hoc quidem gnaro. (accipe industriam clandestinae providentiae huius.) [2] ad hoc enim et deposuerat et occultaverat ut, cum Demiurgus animam mox de suo afflatu in Adam communicaret, pariter et semen illud spiritale quasi per canalem animae derivaretur in choicum atque ita feturatum in corpore materiali velut in utero et adultum illic idoneum inveniretur suscipiendo quandoque sermoni perfecto. [3] itaque cum Demiurgus traducem animae suae committit in Adam, latuit homo spiritalis flatui eius insertus et pariter corpori inductus quia non magis semen noverat matris Demiurgus quam ipsam. hoc semen Ecclesiam dicunt, Ecclesiae supernae speculum et Hominis, censum proinde eum ab Achamoth deputantes quemadmodum animalem a Demiurgo, choicum substantis a)rxh~j, carnem materia. habes novum id est quadruplum Geryontem.

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.¹⁵ To the material, that is to say the carnal (nature), which they also call “the left-handed,” they assign undoubted 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,¹ clothed Himself with the primary portions² 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,³ 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!

CAP. XXVI. [1] sic et exitum singulis dividunt: materiali quidem, id est carnali, quem et sinistrum vocant, indubitatum interitum; animali vero quem et dextrum appellant dubitatum eventum utpote inter materialem spiritalemque nutanti et illac debito qua plurimum adnuerit. ceterum spiritalem emitti in animalis comparationem ut erudiri cum eo et exerceri in conversationibus possit. [2] indiguisse enim animalem etiam sensibilium disciplinarum. in hoc et paraturam mundi prospectam, in hoc et Soterem in mundo repraesentatum, in salutem scilicet animalis. alia adhuc compositione monstruosum volunt illum prosicias earum substantiarum induisse quarum summam saluti esset redacturus: ut spiritalem quidem susceperit ab Acha-moth, animalem vero quem mox a Demiurgo induit Christum, ceterum corporalem ex animali substantia sed miro et inenarrabili rationis ingenio constructam administrationis causa interim tulisse quo congressui et conspectui et contactui et defunctui ingratis subiaceret. materiale autem nihil in illo fuisse utpote salutis alienum--quasi aliis fuerit neces- sarius quam egentibus salutem. et totum hoc ut carnis nostrae habitum alienando a Christo a spe etiam salutisexcipiant.

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 adduce⁴ (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 describe⁵ these incongruous crammings,⁶ which they have contrived in relation both to their men and their gods. Even the Demiurge has a Christ of His own—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.⁷ 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.⁸ 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,⁹ and being undiscovered even by the Demiurge himself. The animal and carnal Christ, however, does suffer after the fashion¹⁰ 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 cognizable¹¹ form. In this manner do they reduce all things to mere images—Christians themselves being indeed nothing but imaginary beings!

CAP. XXVI. [1] nunc reddo de Christo in quem tanta licentia Iesum inserunt quidem quanta spiritale semen animali cum inflatu infulciunt, fartilia nescio quae commenti et Hominum et deorum suorum: esse etiam Demiurgo suum Christum filium naturalem denique animalem, prolatum ab ipso, promulgatum prophetis, in praepositionum quaestionibus positum, id est per virginem non ex virgine editum quia delatus in virginem transmeatoria potius quam generatorio more processerit per ipsam non ex ipsa, non matrem eam sed viam passus. [2] super hunc itaque Christum devolasse tunc in baptismatis sacramento Iesum per effigiem columbae. fuisse autem et in Christo etiam ex Achamoth spiritalis seminis condimentum ne marceresceret scilicet reliqua farsura. nam in figuram principalis tetradis quattuor eum substantiis stipant: spiritali Achamothiana, animali Demiurgina, corporali inenarrativa, et illa Sotericiana, id est columbina. et Soter quidem permansit in Christo impassibilis inlaesibilis inapprehensibilis. denique cum ad prehensiones venitur, discessit ab illo in cognitione Pilati; [3] proinde nec matris semen admisit iniurias aeque insubditivum et ne ipsi quidem Demiurgo compertum. patitur vero animalis et carneus Christus in delineationem superioris Christi qui Achamoth formando substantivali non agnitionali forma Cruci, ed est Horo, fuerat innixus. ita omnia in imagines surgent, plane et ipsi imaginarii Christiani.

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 prophets¹² between Achamoth, the Seed, and the Demiurge), no sooner heard of the advent of Soter (Saviour) than he runs to him with haste and joy, with all his might, like the centurion in the Gospel.¹ 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.

CAP. XXVIII. [1] interea Demiurgus omnium adhuc nescius etsi aliquid et ipse per prophetas contionabitur ne huius quidem operis sui intellegens--dividunt enim et prophetiale patrocinium in Achamoth, semen, in Demiurgum--ubi adventum Soteris accepit propere et ovanter accurrit cum omnibus suis viribus--cen- turio de evangelio--et de omnibus inluminatus ab illo etiam suam discit quod successurus sit in locum matris. [2] ita exinde securus dispensationem mundi huius vel maxime ecclesiae protegendae nomine quanto tempore oportuit insequitur.

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 dispensation² of the whole human race. Having at first stated their views as to man’s threefold nature—which was, however, united in one³ 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 qualities⁴ of nature and essential character.⁵ The material nature,⁶ which had become reprobate for salvation, they assign to Cain; the animal nature, which was poised between divergent hopes, they find⁷ in Abel; the spiritual, preordained for certain salvation, they store up⁸ 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,⁹ from Seth adventitiously,¹⁰ not in the way of nature, but of grace,¹¹ in such wise that Achamoth infuses it¹² among superior beings like rain¹³ 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;¹⁴ for that nature they have pronounced to be incapable of any change or reform in its natural condition.¹⁵ This grain, then, of spiritual seed is modest and very small when cast from her hand, but under her instruction¹⁶ increases and advances into full conviction, as we have already said;¹⁷ 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,¹⁸ 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.

CAP. XXIX. [1] colligam nunc ex disperso ad concludendum quae de totius generis humani dispositione iusserunt. triformem naturam primordio professi et tamen inunitam in Adam, inde iam dividunt per singulares generum proprietates nacti occasionemdistinctionis huiusmodi ex posteritate ipsius Adae moralibus quoque differentiis tripertita. [2] Cain et Abel, Seth fontes quodammodo generis humani in totidem derivant argumenta naturae atque sententiae: choicum, saluti degeneratum, ad Cain redigunt; animale, mediae spei deliberatum, ad Abel componunt; spiritale, certae saluti praeiudicatum, in Seth recondunt. sic et animas ipsas duplici proprietate discernunt, bonas et malas secundum choicum statum ex Cain et ani- malem ex Abel. [3] spiritalem enim ex Seth de obvenientia super- ducunt iam non naturam sed indulgentiam ut quos Achamoth de superioribus in animas bonas depluat, id est animali censui inscriptas. choicum enim genus, id est malas animas, numquam capere salutaria; immutabilem enim et irreformabilem naturae pronuntiaverunt. id ergo granum seminis spiritalis modicum et parvulum iactu sed eruditu huius fides augetur atque provehitur, ut supra diximus, animaeque hoc ipso ita ceteris praeverterant ut Demiurgus tunc ignorans magni eas fecerit. [4] ex earum ergo laterculo et in reges et in sacerdotes allegere consueverat; quae nunc quoque si plenam atque perfectam notitiam apprehenderint istarum neniarum naturificatae iam spiritalis condicionis germanitate certam obtinebunt salutem immo omnimodo debitam.

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 works¹⁹ 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,²⁰ we may work out by right²¹ of our conduct. Upon us, who are of an imperfect nature,²² is imprinted the mark of this (animal) seed, because we are reckoned as sprung from the loves of Theletus,²³ 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!²⁴ As for them, however, they may prove their nobility by the dissoluteness²⁵ of their life and their diligence²⁶ 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 marriages,¹ 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 bastard² 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?

CAP. XXX. [1] ideoque neo operationes necessarias sibi existimant neo ulla disciplinae mania observant martyrii quoque eludentes necessitatem qua volant interpretatione. hanc enim regulam ani- mali semini praestitutam ut salutem quam non de privilegio status possidemus de suffragio actus elaboremus. nobis enim inscriptura huius seminis qui imperfectae scientiae sumus qua non norimus Theletum et utique abortui deputatur (quod mater illorum!). [2] sed nobis quidem--vae si excesserimus in aliquod disciplinae iugum, si obtorpuerimus in operibus sanctitatis atque iustitiae, si confitendum alibi nescio ubi et non sub potestatibus istius saeculi apud tribunalia praesidum optaverimus. [3] illi vero et de passivitate vitae et diligentia delictorum generositatem suam vindicent blandiente suis Achamoth quoniam et ipsa delinquendo proficit. nam et honorandorum coniugiorum supernorum gratia edicitur apud illos meditandum atque celebrandum semper sacramentum “comiti,” id est feminae, adhaerendi. alioquin degenerem nec legitimum veritatis qui deversatus in mundo non amaverit feminam nec se ei iunxerit. et quid facient spadones quos videmus apudillos?

CHAP. XXXI.—AT THE LAST DAY GREAT CHANGES TAKE PLACE AMONGST THE ÆONS 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,³ 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.⁴ Then, to begin with, Achamoth herself removes from the middle region,⁵ from the second stage to the highest, since she is restored to the Pleroma: she is immediately received by that paragon of perfection⁶ Soter, as her spouse of course, and they two afterwards consummate⁷ new nuptials. This must be the spouse of the Scripture,⁸ the Pleroma of espousals (for you might suppose that the Julian laws⁹ 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 Hebdomad¹⁰ to the higher regions, to his mother’s now vacant saloon¹¹—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.

CAP. XXXI. [1] superest de consummatione et dispensatione mercedis: ubi Achamoth totani massam seminis sui presserit dein colligere in horreum coeperit, vel cum ad molas delatum et defarinatum in consparsione salutari absconderit donec totum confrequentetur, tunc consummatio urgebit. igitur imprimis ipsa Achamoth de regione medietatis de tabulato secundo in summumtransferetur restituta Pleromati. statim excinit compacticius ille Soter--Sponsus scilicet; ambo coniugium novum fient --hic erit in scripturis sponsus et sponsalis Pleroma. [2] credas enim ubi de loco in locum transmigratur leges quoque Iulias intervenire. sicut et scaenem et Demiurgus tunc de hebdomade caelesti in superiora mutabit in vacuum iam caenaculum matris sciens iam nec videns illam. nam si ita erat, semper ignorare maluisset.

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 earthy¹² and material mark there accrues an entire destruction, because “all flesh is grass,”¹³ 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.¹⁴ 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.¹⁵ 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 obtained¹⁶ them from him. They will then become wholly intellectual spirits—impalpable,¹⁷ invisible¹⁸—and in this state will be readmitted invisibly to the Pleroma—stealthily, if the case admits of the idea.¹⁹ 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 end²⁰ 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,²¹ 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 tacitly²²—even become the parent by an angel of some Æon of high numerical rank.²³ 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.²⁴ But I, too, 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 Fortune¹ 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 classed 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.

CAP. XXXII. [1] humana vero gens in hoc exitus ibit: choicae et materialis notae totum in interitum quia omnis caro foenum. et anima mortalis apud illos nisi quae salutem fide invenerit. iustorum animae, id est nostrae, ad Demiurgum in medietatis receptacula transmittentur--agimus gratias, contenti erimus cum deo nostro deputaci qua census animalis. nihil in Pleromacis palatium admittitur nisi spiritale examen Valentini. [2] illic itaque primo despoliantur homines ipsi, id est interiores; despoliare est autem deponere animas quibus induti videbantur, easque Demiurgo suo reddent quas ab eo averterant. ipsi autem spiritus in totum fient intellectuales neque detentui neque conspectui obnoxii, atque ita invisibiliter in Pleroma recipiuntur. furtim si ita est. [3] quid deinde? angelis distribuentur satellitibus Soteris. in filios putas? non. sed in adparatores? ni istud quidem. sed in imagines? utinam vel hoc. in quid ergo si non pudet dicere? in sponsas! tunc illi sabinas raptas inter se de matrimoniis ludent. haec erat spiritalium merces, hoc prae- mium credendi. [4] fabulae tales utiles ut Marcus aut Gaius in hac carne barbatus et in hac anima severus maritus pater avus proavus--certe quod sufficit masculus--in nyphone Pleromatis ab angelo. . . tacendo iam dixi; et forsitan parias aliquem novissimum Aeonem. his nuptiis recte deducendis pro face et flammeo tunc credo ille ignis arcaNous erumpet et universam substantiam depopulatus ipse quoque decineratis omnibus in nihilum finietur et nulla iam fabula. [5] sed ne ego temerarius qui tantum sacramentum etiam inludendo prodiderim. verendum mihi est ne Achamoth quae se nec filio agnitam voluit insaniet, ne Theletus irascatur, ne Fortunata acerbetur. et tamen homo sum Demiurgi; illuc habeo devertere ubi post excessum omnino non obnubitur, ubi superindui potius quam despoliari, ubi etsi despolior sexui meo, deputor angelis non angelus non angela; nemo mihi quicquam faciet quem nec tunc masculum inveniet.

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,² 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 on³ 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,⁴ inasmuch as she affords efficiency to Cogitatio.

CAP. XXXIII. [1] producam denique velut epicitharisma post fabulam tantam etiam illa quae, ne ordini obstreperent et lectoris intentionem interiectione dispargerent, hunc malui in locum distulisse aliter atque aliter commendata ab emendatioribus Ptolomaei. exstiterunt enim de schola ipsius discipuli supermagistrum qui duplex coniugium Bytho suo adfingerent, Cogitationem et Voluntatem. [2] una enim sans non erat Cogitatio qua nihil producere potuisset. ex duabus facillime prolatum secundum coniugium Monogenem et Veritatem, ad imaginem quidem Cogitationis feminam Veritatem, ad imaginem Voluntatis marem Monogenem. Voluntatis enim vis, ut quae effectum praestat Cogitationi, viritatis obtinet censum.

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 Bythus; 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.

CAP. XXXIV. [1] pudiciores alii honorem divinitatis recordati ut etiam unius coniugis dedecus ab eo avellerent maluerunt nullum Bytho sexum deputare et fortasse hoc dominum non hic deus neutro genere pronuntiant. [2] alii contra magis et masculum et feminam dicunt ne apud solos Lunenses Hermaphroditum existimet annalium commentator Fenestella.

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 Pro-arche (Before the Beginning) first, Anennœtos (Inconceivable) second, Arrhetos (Indescribable) third, Aoratos (Invisible) fourth. Then after Pro-arche they say Arche (Beginning) came forth and occupied the first and the fifth place; from Anennœtos came Acataleptos (Incomprehensible) in the second and the sixth place; from Arrhetos came Anonomastos (Nameless) in the third and the seventh place; from Aoratos⁵ came Agennetos (Unbegotten) in the fourth and the eight place. Now by what method he arranges this, that each of these Æons 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?

CAP. XXXV. [1] sunt qui nec principatum Bytho defendunt sed postumatum, ogdoadem ante omnia praemittentes ex tetrade quidem et ipsum sed et aliis nominibus derivatam. primo enim constituunt Proarchen, secondo Anennoeton, tertio Arrheton, quarto Aoraton. [2] ex Proarche itaque processisse primo et quinto loco Archen, ex Anennoeto secondo et sexto loco Acatalepton, ex Arrheto tertio et septimo loco Anonomaston, ex Invisibili quarto et ottavo loco Agenneton. hoc quae ratio disponat ut singula binis locis et quidem tam intercisis nascantur malo ignorare quam discere. quid enim recti habent quae tam perverse proferuntur?

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 Æon has descended from another by steps like these, which are really neither more nor less Gemonian;⁶ but that on a given signal⁷ the eightfold emanation, of which we have heard,⁸ issued all at once from the Father and His Ennœa (Thought),⁹—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 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.

CAP. XXXVI. [1] quanto meliores qui totum hoc taedium de medio amoliti nullum Aeonem voluerunt alium ex alio per gradus revera Gemonios structam, sed mappa quod aiunt missa semel octoiugum istam ex Propatore et Ennoea eius excusam. ex ipso denique rerum motu nomina gerunt: [2] cum (inquiunt) cogitavit proferre, hoc Pater dictus est; cum protulit quia vero protulit, hic Veritas appellata est. cum semetipsum voluit probare, hoc Homo pronuntiatus est. quos autem praecogitavit cum protulit, tane Ecclesia nuncupata est. sonuit Homo Sermonem, et hic est primogenitus filius; et Sermoni accessit Vita, et ogdoas prima conclusa est. sed hoc taedium omninopusillum.

CHAP. XXXVII.—OTHER TURGID AND RIDICULOUS THEORIES ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF THE ÆONS AND CREATION, STATED AND CONDEMNED

Now listen to some other buffooneries¹ of a master who is a great swell among them,² and who has pronounced his dicta with an even priestly authority. They run thus: There comes, says he, before all things Pro-arche, 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,³ the intellectual, innascible, invisible beginning of all things, which human language⁴ has called Monad (Solitude).⁵ This has inherent in itself a consubstantial force, which it calls Unity.⁶ These powers, accordingly, Solitude or Solitariness, and Unity, or Union, propagated all the other emanations of Æons.⁷ 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.

CAP. XXXVII. [1] accipe alia ingenia circulatoria insignioris apud eos magistri qui et pontificali sua auctoritate in hunc modum censuit: “est (inquit) ante omnia Proarche inexcogitabile et inenarrabile innominabile quod ego nomino Monoteta. cum hac erit alia virtus quam et ipsam appello Honoteta. [2] Monotes et Henotes, id est Solitas et Unitas, cum unum essent protulerunt non proferentes initium omnium intellectuale innascibile invisibile quod Sermo Monada vocavit. huic adest consubstan- tiva virtus quam appellat Unionem. hae igitur virtutes,Solitas, Unitas Singularitas, Unio, ceteras prolationes Aeonum propagarunt.” o differentia, mutetur Unio et Unitas et Singularitas et Solitas quaqua designaveris--unum est.

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 away⁸ from any one of the Æons, but from the fruits which issued from their substance.

CAP. XXXVIII. [1] humanior iam Secundus ut brevior, ogdoadem in duas tetradas dividens, in dexteram et sinistram, in lumen et tenebras, tantum quod desultricem et defectricem illam virtutem non vult ab aliquo deducete Aeonum sed a fructibus de substantiavenientibus.

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 Æons.⁹ Another party will have it that He is made up only of those ten whom the Word and the Life¹⁰ produced;¹¹ 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,¹² 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,¹³ 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 ^[1]

CAP. XXXIX. [1] de ipso iam domino Iesu quanta diversitas scinditur: hi ex omnium Aeonum flosculis eum construunt: illi ex solis decem constitisse contendunt quos Sermo et Vita protulerunt. inde et in ipsum Sermonis et Vitae concurrerint tituli. isti ex duodecim potius ex Hominis et Ecclesiae fetu ideoque Filium Hominis avite pronuntiatum. alii a Christo et Spiritu Sancto constabiliendae conversitati provisis confictum et inde paternae appellationis heredem. [2] sunt qui Filium Hominis non aliunde conceperint dicendum quam quia ipsum Patrem pro magno nominis sacramento Hominem appellasse se praesumpserit, ut quid amplius speres de dius dei fide cui nunc adaequaris. talia ingenia superfruticant apud illos ex materni seminis redundantia. atque ita insolescentes doctrinae Valentinianorum in silvas iam exolever