one long and successive degradation. The author of the Second Document,
after making a somewhat clumsy effort to conclude the history of Pistis
Sophia, does not, as we might expect him to do, continue the account of
Jesus’ upward journey, but dismisses it to plunge into a series of
inquiries as to the exact nature of the heavenly hierarchies and the
amount of “Light” which each of them enjoys; and the answers of the
Saviour not only describe these at great length, but indicate, though
obscurely, the various steps by which man can approach divinity. But the
benefits there promised are to be confined evidently to a small and
privileged class chosen out of the main body of Christians. The use of
these means, moreover, is a good deal more magical than religious—that
is to say, they apparently act by compulsion rather than by propitiation
of the celestial powers—and was perhaps bound up with the different
“arrays” of stars in a fashion which shows a distinct leaning towards
the astrology of the time.[71] The rebel Rulers of the stars are here
made for the first time the instruments in the punishment of sinful
souls,[72] and the terrors of hell are held out as a menace which may
induce mankind to accept initiation into the mysteries offered. In all
this, we cannot but see the reversion to Pagan practices, to the
dualistic theory of the universe, and to the tendency to appeal to
ignoble motives into which post-Christian gnosticism sank in its
decadence, and which finds, perhaps, its fullest expression in
Manichaeism.
The Interpolated Fragment is, it is true, markedly free from these
objections. The gaze of the author of this is indeed turned upwards
instead of downwards, and we find him indulging in unrestrained
speculation as to the “members” of the Supreme Being which are still
unmanifested but existed before even the First Mystery, and have
apparently remained without emanation.[73] The fragment is too short for
us to guess of what practical use these pretended revelations are
supposed to be; but Jesus is represented as saying with regard to the
“Members,” that “He is the Treasure-house of them all.” Something of the
kind is hinted at in the long catalogue of transcendental powers given
in the Second Document; and it is therefore possible that this Fragment
may once have formed part of some continuation of the account of Jesus’
journey upwards which was in course of narration when broken off to
recount the episode of Pistis Sophia.
The Third Document, however, resumes the descent of the slope of
degradation with increased speed. As with the Egyptian funerary texts
which succeeded and in some measure supplanted the _Book of the
Dead_,[74] the punishments after death and the way to escape them form
the principal theme of this Document. As for magic, the gifts of healing
and working of miracles, here explained as the raising of the dead and
the casting out of devils, which the Epistle to the Corinthians puts
among the Charismata or gifts of the Spirit,[75] are here said to belong
to the Rulers or wicked Archons, and to be only lawfully exercised by
the disciples for the purpose of spreading the faith throughout the
world.[76] So, too, the information as to the fourfold division of man’s
incorporeal part: Power, Soul, Spirit Counterfeit, and Fate, is all
taken from the popular beliefs of Pagan Egypt; and the formulas enabling
the initiate to “loose the bonds” which bind the soul to the worst of
these, are as clearly to be referred to the belief in the power of names
and in the compulsion of the spirit-world which Iamblichus tells us was
the main peculiarity of Egyptian magic.[77] The divisions of the place
of punishment into four hells of graduated intensity and the final doom
of annihilation for the worst sinners are also taken from the same
literature.[78] So far does this go, that even the uninitiated dead when
in the worst of all the hells can escape from his torments and enjoy a
qualified beatitude, if he then repeats certain names which he has
learned during his life.[79] It is quite true that we hear in this
Document about the Love of God and the initiates doing things worthy of
the mysteries and praying prayers in certain forms; but its general
tendency remains almost entirely magical.
With the Fourth Document, we seem to have reached the bottom of the
slope. The disciples here know nothing—it will be remembered that the
scene is supposed to take place directly after the Resurrection—of the
higher worlds and their mysteries, or even of the parts of this Chorema
or Space which are above the Treasure-house; and their flight upward
with Jesus has for its object merely the exhibition of the terrors of
one of the Places of Punishment. So, too, the information which they
obtain both by sight and by word of mouth as to the disposition and
names of the stars and planets can hardly have been of use to them
except for the purpose of magic and astrology. Of the joys prepared for
the faithful and of the glories of the Divine Presence described in the
_Book of Enoch_ and other Apocrypha, they are told nothing. The
sacraments that Jesus celebrates for them are, it would seem, to be
given to them in return for leaving all and following Him;[80] but are
entirely magical in character, and nothing is said of any abandonment of
sinful practices or of any repentance being necessary for their
efficacy. The sign that He asks for from His Father,[81] here called
merely the Father of the Treasure-house, although not here specifically
described, is, as we know from the parallel passage in the _Bruce
Papyrus_, the conversion of the wine in one of the wine-cups into the
“water of baptism,”[82] in a way which strongly reminds us of the
juggling sacraments attributed by Irenæus and the other heresiologists
to the magician Marcus. The formal remission of sins which precedes this
sacrament is accomplished by the invocation of many powers with
incomprehensible names, and, if we read the passage correctly, only
extends to sins of the flesh.[83] They are told to “hide this mystery
and give it to none” save those who observe His commandments in words
which almost repeat those of the _Book of the Dead_.[84] Yet even these
sacraments would appear not to be needed by those who know the Great
Name, the utterance of which will put to flight all demons, dissolve
their houses of torment, and subjugate the highest material powers of
the universe.[85] Nothing is wanting to show that the sect which put
forth this Document had slipped back into the preoccupation with the
terrors of hell which is the prevailing feature of the Egyptian religion
of the last native dynasties,[86] and that the belief in magic and
astrology into which Hellenic Paganism had sunk during the third and
fourth centuries had taken the place of the loftier if vain speculations
of the earlier Documents of our text. So much is this the case that the
Ineffable One and the First Mystery of the first three Documents are not
even mentioned here, and the only link connecting this with the story of
Pistis Sophia is the casual mention of her name as supplying a “Power”
for the planet Venus.[87]
With the Fifth Document a still lower level is reached. Hell and its
torments form the only subject of this book, which as has been said
above, is probably nearly complete, only a few pages of the conclusion
being beyond recall. More proper-names of fiends are given here than in
any of the preceding documents; and as has been said, these now include
many of the Pagan gods such as the Egyptian Typhon, the Syrian Adonis,
and the Greek Persephone and Hecate. These may possibly have been
included among the subordinate “gods” several times referred to in the
First Document, but the fact that their names are here openly given,
seems to point to a time when the Pagans were in a minority in the
Eastern world. The increasing influence of the belief in astrology with
which even the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria did not disdain to meddle,
is also shown by the answer already mentioned of Jesus to an inquiry of
Mary Magdalene wherein He tells her that the allotment of souls to
“righteous” and “wicked” bodies respectively is periodic and depends
wholly on the disposition of the stars.
The bearing that all this has on the absolute as distinct from the
relative dating of the five Documents will be dealt with presently.
4. THE AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE DOCUMENTS
We now have to consider by whom and at what date the Documents making up
our text were composed. That they were written in Egypt and for Egyptian
readers there can be no doubt, nor is it seriously disputed by any
commentator who has dealt with them. The use of the Egyptian calendar
evidenced by the placing of the opening scene of the story of Pistis
Sophia in the Egyptian month Tybi, the employment of psalms and hymns as
a means of expounding doctrine, and the peculiar form of rhetoric which
I have called rhapsody, all point to the First and Second Documents
being written by an Egyptian for Egyptians, while to an Egyptologist the
likeness of the long array of Powers here enumerated to the three
successive Enneads or “Companies of Gods” known to Pharaonic Egypt is
too close for us to seek further for its source. Yet the writer shows an
acquaintance with the Platonic philosophy and also with those Synoptic
Gospels which were admittedly written in Greek, which we should not
expect from an inhabitant of the Sahid or Upper Egypt, and this is
unlikely in the earliest period of Christianity to have been possible
outside Alexandria. In this university of the Western world, as it has
been justly called, philosophy was so universal during the first and
second centuries that, not only did the Catholic Church have to set up
about the year 200 the school for the teaching of its officers of whom
Clement of Alexandria was afterwards the head, but Philo, a leader of
the Alexandrian synagogue a hundred years earlier had found himself
obliged to discover Plato’s teaching in the Hebrew Scriptures in a way
that is almost an exact parallel to that used by the author of our First
Document. We have therefore, if we wish to find an author for that
Document, to look for an Alexandrian teacher of Christianity who,
although a heretic, did not take up the uncompromising opposition to the
Catholic Church that Marcion and others did, and who taught before St.
John’s Gospel was generally known. I have said elsewhere that there is
no one who fulfils all those qualifications so well as Valentinus, the
heresiarch who taught in the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, or
from about A.D. 135 to 160.[88]
Of Valentinus’ own teaching we know very little directly because the
Fathers who denounced him as the heresiarch who had attracted the
largest number of followers, have yet given us the doctrines of his
successors rather than of himself. Thus, Irenæus, who wrote at least a
generation after Valentinus, records the teaching of Valentinus’
immediate successor, Ptolemy; Hippolytus, half a century after Irenæus,
the teaching probably of Axionicus,[89] while Tertullian and Epiphanius
merely copy the statements of the two earlier heresiologists, and Origen
quotes from the writings of Ptolemy’s contemporary Heracleon. Only
Clement of Alexandria, Valentinus’ fellow countryman, who must have been
born about the time when Valentinus was endeavouring to convert the
Church of Rome to his views, quotes directly from Valentinus’ own words;
and from these, it appears that Valentinus’ theology differed little in
outward appearance from that of the Catholic Church of his time.[90]
That this must have been so is indeed manifest when we read in
Tertullian that Valentinus came to Rome expecting to be made bishop,[91]
as one might now say, Pope, because of his genius and eloquence.
Hippolytus, who probably drew his account from Axionicus, says that he
declared the Supreme God to be “all Love” who created subsequent things
that He might have something to love.[92] According to his opponents,
Valentinus also taught that the Supreme God’s first and greatest
creation was Nous or Mind, called also Monogenes or the Only One, or the
Father, who was “like and equal to Himself,”[93] and from whom came
Logos or the Word, from whom came Anthropos or Man. Yet none of these
three last-named Powers produced offspring without female assistance,
being, according to one account, themselves both male and female, or,
according to another, having spouses called respectively Aletheia or
Truth, Zoe or Life, and Ecclesia or the Church. It was even said that
the Supreme God or Abyss, who was the source of all being, had in like
manner a spouse named Sige “Silence,” or Charis “Grace,” although the
Fathers admit that the followers of Valentinus, whose tenets they
denounce, held various opinions as to this. They are, however, agreed
that from these three syzygies or pairs, making with the Supreme God a
Hebdomad or Ogdoad as the case may be, come forth at separate removes a
Decad and a Dodecad or two groups of five and six syzygies respectively;
and that this collection of Divine beings made up the Pleroma or Fulness
of the Godhead. The same writers agree that all Valentinians also taught
that the lowest member of the Pleroma fell away from the Godhead from
ambition or some similar cause, strayed outside the Pleroma and
necessitated the creation of another Divine syzygy called Christ and the
Holy Spirit to restore her to her place, and of a solitary Power called
Horos or Stauros the “Limit” or the “Cross” to preserve the Pleroma from
further contact with the Kenoma or the Void outside it. Before returning
to the Pleroma, moreover, Sophia had given birth without male assistance
to a being expressly compared to the “earth without form and void” of
Genesis, which the last Divine Syzygy of Christ and the Holy Spirit
before returning to the Godhead fashioned into an Æon as perfect as
those within it.[94] On finding herself alone, however, this Sophia
Without, as she was called, suffered several “passions” or
emotions:—fear, grief, perplexity, and supplication—and she prayed to
the Syzygy which had given her form for deliverance from them. In answer
to her prayers, yet another Divine Emanation came forth from the
Godhead. This was “Jesus, the Great High Priest,” to whose formation
every one of its members had contributed whatever was best and brightest
in the nature of each. Jesus in His emanation went immediately to the
consolation of Sophia Without, stripped her of her passions and remained
with her as her spouse in what is called the Heavenly Jerusalem to reign
with her over all that is without the Godhead. As for her passions,
since they could not be destroyed, they were made, say the Valentinians
quoted by Hippolytus, into different substances or essences—her fear
into the essence of the soul, her grief into that of matter, and her
perplexity into that of demons, while of her supplication He made “a
path for repentance.” The essence of the soul, which is called by
several names suggesting the God of Moses, became the Architect of the
Cosmos or ordered world, and rules, without being aware of the existence
of the Powers superior to himself, in the Heavenly Jerusalem or Ogdoad,
over the Seven Heavens. The more material Cosmos or ordered world of
matter is, according to the same writer, ruled by a Power called
Diabolos, perhaps the Accuser or Adversary, and the Chaos, which is
below all, by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.[95]
It may, of course, be thought that by putting forth ideas so much
opposed to our modern ideas of Christianity, Valentinus was
irreconcilably cutting himself off from the Catholic Church. But is it
certain that the Fathers, who report the doctrine of his successors,
really understood Valentinus in this respect? The idea of allegory in an
Oriental mind is not exactly the same as in our own, and with the
Egyptian especially, it is always difficult to tell whether he is not
taking what we see at once to be metaphor as the narration of actual
fact. Thus, the rise of the Nile is, as every ancient Egyptian very well
knew, caused by the sudden influx of water coming down after the
seasonal rains from the Abyssinian highlands. Yet the way in which he
chose to describe it was that the goddess Isis let drop a tear into the
river which went on swelling in volume until it reached the sea. Nor is
the reverse process unknown. In the Coptic text known as the _Book of
Resurrection_, Judas Iscariot when in Amente has his mouth filled with
thirty snakes “so that they might devour him,” and if this statement
stood by itself, we might believe that it was actual snakes which were
meant. But the writer (supposed to be St. Bartholomew the Apostle) goes
on to say that the name of the first snake is “Remoteness from God,” of
the seventh “Haughtiness of Heart,” of the twelfth “Hypocrisy,” of the
eighteenth “Treachery” and so on.[96] Irenæus and Tertullian are agreed
that certain Valentinians explained the names of their Supreme Ogdoad as
a mere figure of speech showing the steps by which the Divine Nature
became appreciable by man. When, they said, God _thought_ of producing
offspring He acquired the name of Father; and because His offspring was
_true_, the name of Truth; and because he wished to appear in human
form, he was called Man; and because He assembled His attributes in His
mind and _chose_ from them those best fitted for His purpose, they were
called the _Church_.[97] I have shown elsewhere that all the names of
the male and female members of the Decad and Dodecad attributed to
Valentinus can in like manner be read so as to make a connected
sentence;[98] and the way in which the Fathers deceived themselves in
such matters has lately been shown by the brilliant discovery of an
American scholar that thirty words of apparent gibberish which
Epiphanius gives as the names of the thirty Æons of Valentinus’ Pleroma,
are really the fragments of a Valentinian hymn describing how the
Celestial Light came to be in every Place and restored tranquillity to
the worlds.[99] There is therefore considerable reason to think that the
statements of Irenæus and the other heresiologists on Valentinus’
division of the Godhead need not be taken as literally and exactly
accurate; and it is noticeable that while the number of beings within
the Pleroma is sometimes represented by them as thirty, it is sometimes
twenty-eight and sometimes thirty-three. The same discrepancies are
marked in the old Egyptian religion from which, if I am right,
Valentinus drew his phraseology. All that we can say, therefore, with
certainty as to Valentinus’ views regarding the Godhead is that he
believed it manifested itself in three successive stages of emanation.
The most convincing proof that this was the fundamental point of his
teaching can perhaps be found in the manner in which Hippolytus, at the
end of his account of it, drags in the second epistle of Plato about the
Good Source of All and its secondary and tertiary developments as
evidence of Valentinus’ Platonizing.[100]
The other great and distinguishing feature of Valentinus’ teaching was
the story of Sophia. This is found in no other heresy but the Ophite,
where it takes a form so much grosser and coarser than that of
Valentinus as to betray its connection with the myths current in Western
Asia long before our Era; and I have before suggested that it was
probably from Ophite sources that Valentinus constructed his story. In
doing so, he refined it, and instead of making Sophia’s fall from the
Godhead a mere accident, he portrayed it as the result of disobedience
and emulation, while her eventual return thereto was the result of her
repentance. That the Demiurge or Architect of the Universe was brought
into being by her, and that Matter is his creation, while the Divine
spark in man comes from Sophia Without, who in her turn depends upon the
Sophia within the Pleroma, appears plainly from a “psalm” by Valentinus
himself quoted by Hippolytus.[101] We see, then, that the fundamental
points of Valentinus’ teaching were the manifestation of the Godhead in
three successive stages, the story of Sophia’s Fall through error and
her restoration by repentance, and the dependence of the lower and more
material parts of the Universe upon the higher ones. We shall see later
that these are also the foundations of the system disclosed in the
earlier documents of the _Pistis Sophia_.