The life of Bar Daisan, of which some particulars have been preserved

for us by Bar Hebraeus and other Eastern historians of the Church,

throws considerable light upon the attitude towards Christianity of

Valentinus and that Anatolic School which best represented his

teachings. Bar Daisan was born some fifty years after Valentinus of rich

and noble parents in the town of Edessa in Mesopotamia, where he seems

to have been educated in the company of the future king of the country,

Abgar Bar Manu[421]. He was probably a Christian from his infancy, early

became a Christian teacher, and withstood Apollonius, a Pagan Sophist

who visited Edessa in the train of the Emperor Caracalla, making avowal

of his readiness to suffer martyrdom for the faith. According to

Eusebius, he had the greatest abhorrence of the dualistic doctrine of

Marcion and wrote books against him in his native Syriac which were

afterwards translated into Greek[422]. He, or perhaps his son

Harmonius[423], also composed a great number of hymns which were sung in

the Catholic Churches of Mesopotamia and Syria; and it was not until a

century and a half after his death that Ephrem Syrus, a doctor of the

now triumphant and persecuting Church, found that these abounded in the

errors of Valentinus, and deemed it necessary to substitute for them

hymns of his own composition[424]. Valentinus seems in like manner to

have lived in Rome as a Christian teacher, as we have seen, for at least

sixteen years, and to have composed many psalms, some of which are

quoted by Clement of Alexandria. If Tertullian is to be believed, he was

qualified for the episcopate, which he must have had some chance of

obtaining; and his want of orthodoxy cannot, therefore, have been

manifest at the time or considered an objection to his candidature[425].

Moreover, Irenaeus says that Valentinus was the first who converted the

so-called Gnostic heresy into the peculiar characteristics of his own

school[426]; which agrees with Tertullian’s statement that Valentinus

was “at first a believer in the teaching of the Catholic Church in the

Church of Rome under the episcopate of the Blessed Eleutherus[427].” It

is evident, therefore, that long after his peculiar teaching was

developed, he remained a member of the Church, and that it was not by

his own wish that he left it, if indeed he ever did so.

One is therefore led to examine with some closeness the alleged

differences between his teaching and that of the orthodox Christianity

of his time; and these, although they may have been vitally important,

seem to have been very few. With regard to his views as to the nature of

the Godhead, as given above, they do indeed seem to differ _toto coelo_

from those shadowed forth in the Canonical Gospels and Epistles, and

afterwards defined and emphasized by the many Œcumenical and other

Councils called to regulate the Church’s teaching on the matter. The

long series of aeons constituting his Pleroma or Fulness of the Godhead

seems at first sight to present the most marked contrast with the

Trinity of Three Persons and One God in the Creeds which have come down

to us from the early Church. But is there any reason to suppose that

Valentinus regarded the members of these Tetrads, Decads, and Dodecads

as possessing a separate and individual existence or as having any

practical importance for the Christian? We can hardly suppose so, when

we consider the attitude of his immediate followers with regard to them.

Some, as we have seen, were said to have put as the origin of all

things, not a single principle but two principles of different sexes or,

as Irenaeus says, a “dyad,” thereby splitting the Supreme Being into

two[428]. We can imagine the outcry that this would have caused two

centuries later when the different parties within the Christian Church

were at each other’s throats on the question whether the Son was of the

same or only of like substance with the Father. Yet neither Valentinus,

nor Ptolemy, nor Heracleon, nor any one of the Valentinian leaders seems

to have borne the others any hostility on that account, to have dreamed

of separating from them on such a pretext, or to have ceased to regard

themselves both as Christians and followers of Valentinus. The only

inference to be drawn from this is either that the account of their

teaching has been grossly corrupted or that they considered such

questions as matters of opinion merely, on which all might freely

debate, but which were not to be taken as touchstones of the faith.

This view derives great support from the way in which Clement of

Alexandria, Valentinus’ countryman and the one among the Fathers who

seems best fitted to understand him, regarded similar questions. M.

Courdaveaux has shown with great clearness that Clement sometimes

confounded the Third Person of the Trinity with the Second, and

sometimes made Him His inferior. He also considered the Son as a simple

creature of the Father, and, therefore, necessarily, of lower rank[429].

It was for such “heresies,” as they were afterwards called, that

Photius, who had Clement’s now lost book of the _Hypotyposes_ under his

eyes, condemned him as a heretic, although his judgment in the matter

has never been adopted by the Church. M. Courdaveaux also shows that

Tertullian, even before he left the Church, looked upon both the Son and

the Holy Spirit as only “members” of the Father, whom he considered to

contain within Himself the complete divine substance; and this was

certainly none of the heresies for which his memory was arraigned[430].

It by no means follows that Valentinus’ teaching was the same as that of

the Church in all its details; but it seems possible from these examples

that he did not think it necessary to be more definite than the Church

herself upon such points, and that he did not look upon them in any

other light than as matters of opinion.

It should also be considered whether the language that Valentinus used

regarding the nature and divisions of the Godhead is to be construed in

the same sense and as implying the meaning that it would have done a few

centuries later, when these points had been long discussed and the

reasons for and against them marshalled and weighed. So far as can now

be seen, he, like all Egyptians, never lost sight of allegory in dealing

with matters transcending sense. Thus, when he speaks of the pretended

union of Bythos and Sige, he is careful to say that there is nothing

actually begotten, and that the whole story must be considered in a

figurative sense:

“The Father [_i.e._ Bythos] alone,” he says, “was unbegotten, not

subject to conditions of place, nor time, taking no counsel, nor

having any other being that can be comprehended by any recognized

trope: but he was alone, and, as it is said, solitary, and resting

in solitary repose within himself. And when he became fruitful, it

seemed to him good at a certain time to engender and bring forth the

most beautiful and perfect thing which he had within him: for he did

not love solitude. For he was all love, but love is not love unless

there is something to be loved[431].”

Between this and such Canonical texts as “God is love, and he that

dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him[432],” there may be a

difference of application indeed, but none of language.

It seems, therefore, that in his theology Valentinus treated the Ophitic

ideas on which he worked very much as the Ophites had themselves treated

the legends of Osiris and Attis. Dealing with their stories of aeons and

powers as myths—that is to say as legends which whether true or not were

only to be considered as symbols designed to show the way in which the

world and man came forth from God—he thereby established his cosmology

on a foundation which could be considered satisfactory by those

half-heathen schools which had already contrived to reconcile the Pagan

rites with the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian belief in the Mission

of Jesus. But he went far beyond them in applying the same method of

interpretation to all the acts of Jesus recorded in the Gospels. If

Jesus were crucified upon the Cross, it was because its type the aeon

Stauros had been set as a limit between that which is God and that which

is not God but only godlike[433]. If He is said to go up to Jerusalem,

it means that He went up from the world of matter to the Heaven of

Sophia which is called Jerusalem[434]. If He were sent down to earth, it

was because the higher worlds had already been put in the way of

redemption by the gathering-in of Sophia into the Pleroma, the marriage

of Sophia Without to Jesus the Joint Fruit, and the revelation to the

Demiurge or God of the Jews that he was not the Supreme Being but only

his reflection at several removes[435]. Every world is a copy of the one

above it, every event must take place in every world in its turn, and

all creation is like a chain which hung from the heavens is gradually

drawn up to them, this creation of ours (κτίσις καθ’ ἡμᾶς) being its

last link[436].

In all this, Valentinus wrote like a philosopher of the period, and, in

fact, pretty much as Philo had done. But beyond this, he seems to have

paid great attention to what is called the “pastoral” duty of a

religious teacher or the care of souls, and to have busied himself to

show how religion could be used to console and sustain the heart. All

the fragments that we have left of the writings of himself and his

followers are directed towards this end; and would, from this point of

view, do credit to any doctor of the Church. This is especially the case

with the passage formerly quoted likening the human heart to an inn, of

which Clement of Alexandria gives the actual words as follows:

“There is one good by whose coming is the manifestation, which is by

the Son, and by Him alone can the heart become pure, by the

expulsion of every evil spirit from the heart. For the multitude of

spirits dwelling in it do not suffer it to be pure; but each of them

performs his own deeds, insulting it often with unseemly lusts. And

the heart seems to be treated somewhat like the courtyard of an inn.

For the latter has holes and ruts in it, and is often filled with

dung; men living filthily in it, and taking no care for the place

because it belongs to others. So fares it with the heart as long as

no thought is taken for it, and it is unclean and many demons dwell

therein. But when the one good Father visits it, it is sanctified

and gleams with light. And he who possesses such a heart is so

blessed, that he shall see God[437].”

It is no wonder that M. Amélineau speaks in terms of admiration of the

eloquence with which Valentinus applies himself to the problem of the

existence of evil, and that Neander should say that he in great measure

realized the idea of Christianity[438].

It seems indeed plain that Valentinus never intended to break with the

Catholic Church and that it is not likely that he would have attempted

during his life to found any organization that would have been in any

way hostile to her[439]. Hence it is in vain to search for any special

rites belonging to the sect; and it is most probable that he and his

immediate followers continued to worship with the orthodox, and to

resort to the priests of the Church at large for the administration of

the Church’s sacraments. Did they however demand any formal initiation

into their own doctrines or, in other words, attempt to keep them in any

sense secret? One can only say that there is no proof that they did so.

Clement of Alexandria and Origen both quote freely from the books

written by Valentinus and his follower Heracleon in which their

doctrines are openly set forth, and do not hint at any special

difficulty they may have had in obtaining them. Irenaeus, Tertullian,

and Hippolytus do the same thing with regard to the writings of

Valentinus and Ptolemy, and Irenaeus tells us that he has obtained his

knowledge of their doctrines not only by reading their commentaries (on

Scripture) but by personal conversation with their disciples[440]. It

does not, therefore, look as if before the legal procedure of the State

or the more summary methods of the Christian mob could be used by the

Catholics for the suppression of opinion and discussion, the

Valentinians ever tried to do what Basilides had recommended to his

followers, and to found what was really a secret society either within

or without the bosom of the Church[441].

It does not follow from this, however, that the Valentinians differed

only in trifling points from the orthodox, or that the Fathers were

wrong when they accused them of working grave injury to the nascent

Church. The compliances with heathenism which they allowed those who

thought with them, such as attendance at the circus and the theatres,

partaking of heathen sacrifices, and flight or even the denial of their

faith in time of persecution[442], although justified by them with

texts, such as: “That which is of the flesh is flesh; and that which is

of the Spirit is Spirit,” must have aroused the most bitter hostility

from those wise governors of the Church who saw clearly whither the

struggle between the Church and the Roman Empire was tending. The reward

most constantly before the eyes of those about to obtain what was called

“the crown” of martyrdom was that by thus giving their lives for the

faith they would immediately after death become united with the Deity,

instead of waiting like other Christians for the Last Judgment[443].

Hence, intending martyrs were regarded even while yet alive with

extraordinary reverence by the rest of the faithful, who, as we know

from heathen as well as Christian writers, were in the habit of flocking

into the prisons after them, weeping over them and kissing their

fetters, and deeming it a privilege to minister in every way to the

necessities of those who might by a sort of anticipation be regarded as

already Divine[444]. It was on this veritable army of martyrs and on the

enthusiasm which their triumphs excited that the Church mainly relied

for victory in her warfare with the State. But how was this army to be

recruited if the ideas of Valentinus once gained the upper hand in the

Christian community, and it came to be thought that the same reward

could be gained by acquaintance with the relative positions of the

heavens and their rulers, and an accurate knowledge of the constitution

of the universe? It was in time of persecution that the Valentinians

oftenest found adherents—“then the Gnostics break out, then the

Valentinians creep forth, then all the opponents of martyrdom bubble

up,” as Tertullian describes it[445]; and it is easy to understand that

those who had most to lose in position or ease of life would grasp

eagerly at any intermediate course which would enable them to keep their

faith in the religion recently revealed to them without going through

the terrible trials to which their orthodox teachers sought to subject

them. Hence, the Valentinians probably in some sort justified Gibbon’s

remark that “the Gnostics were distinguished as the most polite, the

most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name[446]”; and this

alone would probably account for the undying hostility which the Church

always exhibited towards them.

It was also the case that the spread of the tenets of Valentinus and his

followers was attended with some peculiar social dangers of its own.

Their division of mankind into the three natural classes of spiritual,

psychical, and hylic, if carried to its logical conclusion, brought with

it some strange results. As the spiritual or pneumatics were saved in

any event, and were, already even in this life, as was expressly said, a

kind of “gods,” it was manifestly not for them to trouble themselves

about obedience to the moral law. The same conclusion applied to the

hylics who were doomed to annihilation in any case, and whose struggles

towards righteousness were bound to be inefficacious. There remained the

psychics or animal men, for whom indeed a certain course of life was

prescribed before they could attain salvation. But with the excessive

freedom of interpretation and the licence of variation that Valentinus

apparently allowed his followers, the exact limits of this course must

always have been a matter of doubt; and it was here that many

corruptions and debasements of his teaching began to show themselves.

For it was an age when religious impostors of all kinds found an easy

market in the credulity of their fellows, and charlatans everywhere

abounded who were ready to support their claims to exclusive knowledge

of holy things by false miracles and juggling tricks. Hippolytus gives

us a long list of such devices including the means of answering

questions in sealed letters, producing an apparition, and the like,

which he declares the heresiarchs learnt from the magicians and used as

proof of their own doctrines[447]. One knows at any rate from Lucian’s

evidence that religious pretenders like Alexander of Abonoteichos were

not negligent of such practices, and charlatans of his kind were perhaps

especially likely to be attracted to the timid and wealthy followers of

Valentinus. A Valentinian impostor of this sort, if the Fathers are to

be believed, was the Jewish magician Marcus, who taught a system

corresponding in most points with that given above, but made use of it

in his own interest as a means of moneymaking and for the corruption of

women. Irenaeus speaks of the doctrine of this Marcus as being an

especial snare to the Christians of Gaul, into which country Marcus or

some follower of his perhaps travelled while Irenaeus was Bishop of

Lyons[448]. By a mode of interpretation which was indeed a caricature of

Valentinus’ own, Marcus found proof of the existence and order of his

aeons in the values of the letters composing Divine names and in words

like Jesus and Christos[449]. He seems, too, to have himself

administered baptism accompanied by exorcisms in the Hebrew language,

and to have profaned the Eucharist with juggling tricks which made the

cup to overflow and turned the water it contained into wine having the

semblance of blood[450]. Thus, says Irenaeus, he contrived to draw away

a great number from the Church and to seduce many of the faithful women.

Valentinus, perhaps, is somewhat unfairly held responsible by the

Fathers for such a perversion of his own teaching which he would,

perhaps, have condemned as loudly as they. Scandals of the kind here

hinted at were not unknown in the Catholic Church itself, and Christian

ministers have been found in all ages, sects, and countries who have

been willing to abuse for their own purposes the power which religion

gives them over the opposite sex. It is true, too, that people, as has

been well said, are seldom either as good or as bad as their creed, and

the doctrine that “God sees no sin in His elect” has been preached in

our own time without being followed by the “wretchlessness of most

unclean living” which the 17th article of the Church of England declares

to be one of the probable consequences of predestinarian teaching. The

later Valentinians certainly did not forbid marriage, as is shown by the

pathetic epitaph from a grave in the Via Nazionale quoted by Renan[451],

and thus avoided some of the moral dangers with which the practice of

celibacy is sometimes reproached.

Of the fortunes of the Valentinian sect after the death of Valentinus,

we have very little precise information. Tertullian speaks of it as

being in his time the most numerous society of heretics

(_frequentissimum plane collegium haereticorum_), and in the West it

extended from Rome, as we have seen, into Gaul and even into Spain,

where it existed at the end of the 4th century[452]. Probably, however,

it here propagated itself sporadically, its opinions appearing now and

then among isolated writers and teachers, who probably drew their

disciples carefully from among the Christian community, and only

disclosed their system to those who showed some aptitude for it. Of such

was doubtless “my fair sister Flora” (ἀδελφή μου καλὴ Φλώρα), to whom

Valentinus’ successor Ptolemy wrote a letter setting out his tenets

which Epiphanius has preserved for us[453]. As the quotations in it

presuppose an acquaintance on her part with Old Testament history as

well as with the Canonical Gospels and the Pauline Epistles, there can

be little doubt that she was already a Christian convert. This mode of

propaganda was the more obnoxious to the episcopate that it was likely

to escape for some time the observation of the overseers of the Church,

and is quite sufficient to explain the pains which bishops like Irenaeus

and Hippolytus took to expose and refute the doctrines of the

Valentinians, as well as what they say with doubtful accuracy about the

secrecy which was observed concerning them[454]. In the East, things

were probably different, and Heracleon’s Commentaries on the Gospels,

from which Origen quotes freely, would on the face of it have been

useless unless addressed to the Christian community at large, and make

no attempt to conceal their heretical teaching. In Egypt, however, the

Gnostic teachers found a soil ready prepared for them. Egyptian

Christianity, whether founded, according to tradition, by St Mark or

not, never seems to have gone through the intermediate stage of

observing the prescriptions of the Jewish Law while preaching its

abrogation, and, in Alexandria especially, so far appealed to those

learned in the Hellenistic and other philosophies as to necessitate the

founding of a Christian school there for their study. The native

Egyptians, too, had for millennia been given to mystic speculation about

the nature of God and the destiny of the soul after death; and

Valentinus, who must be presumed to have understood his own people,

doubtless knew how to suit his teaching to their comprehension, even if

he did not incorporate therein, as M. Amélineau has endeavoured to show,

some of the more abstruse doctrines on these points of the old Egyptian

religion[455]. Moreover, from the time of Hadrian onwards, the Egyptians

were animated by a bitter and restless hatred against their Roman

masters, and this feeling, which was by no means without justification,

disposed them to embrace eagerly any ideas condemned by the bishops and

clergy of Rome and of Constantinople. Hence the Valentinians had in

Egypt their greatest chance of success, and the existence of documents

like those described in the next chapter shows that Egyptian

Christianity must have been largely permeated by their ideas perhaps up

to Mohammedan times. Further East, the same causes produced similar

effects, though in this case they were probably modified by the

necessity of combating the remains of heathen religions which there

lingered. The growing political power of the Catholic Church even before

the conversion of Constantine probably drove the Valentinians to form

separate communities wherever they were in sufficient numbers to do so,

and thus is explained the possession by them of the “houses of prayer”

of which the Constantinian Decree above quoted professes to deprive

them. On the confines of the Empire and in provinces so far distant from

the capital as Mesopotamia, these heretical communities probably

lingered longer than in other places, and may have enjoyed, as in the

case of Bardesanes, the protection and countenance of the native

kinglets. Even here, however, the employment of the secular arm which

its alliance with the State gave to the Church seems to have eventually

forced them into an attitude of hostility towards it, as is shown by the

“rabbling” of one of their conventicles in the way before mentioned. The

accession of Julian brought them a temporary respite[456]; but on his

death in the Persian campaign, the retreat of the Roman eagles probably

gave them their quietus. Only in Egypt, it would seem, did their

doctrines succeed in gaining anything like a permanent resting-place.

Elsewhere, the rise of new heresies and especially of Manichaeism drove

them out of their last strongholds.

Valentinianism, therefore, approved itself a stop-gap or temporary

faith, which for two hundred years[457] acted as a halfway house between

heathenism and Christianity. In this capacity, it was singularly

efficient, and was one of the forces which enabled, as Renan said, the

ancient world to change from Paganism to Christianity without knowing

it. In particular, it seems to have attracted to itself the attention of

the learned and leisured class who were endeavouring, earnestly if

somewhat timidly, to work out a rule of faith and conduct from the

welter of creeds and philosophies with which the Empire was swamped

during the first Christian centuries. Such a class is not that out of

which martyrs are made, and is sure sooner or later to acquiesce in the

opinions of the majority; but we may be certain that the learned and

polite Valentinians would have listened with natural disgust to the

simple and enthusiastic declamations of Jewish fishermen and artizans

which had for their chief theme the coming destruction and overthrow of

the social system in which they had grown up. The brilliant, if

baseless, speculations of Valentinus, which even now have a certain

attraction for the lovers of mysticism[458], gave them exactly the kind

of spiritual _pabulum_ they craved for, and enabled them to wait in hope

and patience until Christianity, forcing its way upward, as religions

generally do, from the lowest class of society, had become the faith of

the governing ranks. In this way, Valentinianism was probably one of the

best recruiting grounds for the Catholic Church, and Renan is doubtless

right when he says that no one who passed from Paganism through the

Gnosticism of Valentinus and his fellows ever reverted to his former

faith. Yet Valentinianism itself was doomed to but a short life, and in

its original form probably did not survive its founder by much more than

a century and a half. One of its later developments we shall see in the

next chapter.

Footnote 282:

The same may be said of practically all Christians of the Apostolic

age. See Hatch, _H.L._ p. 124. It was the reproach which Celsus cast

at the whole Christian community in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. See

Origen, _cont. Cels._ Bk III. c. 44. Origen, _op. cit._ Bk III. c. 9,

retorts that “now” (_i.e. circa_ 230 A.D.) not only rich but

highly-placed men and well-born ladies are to be found among the

Christians. The change probably took place during the reign of

Commodus; Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ Bk V. c. 21. Origen and Eusebius

agree that this entry of educated men into the Church brought heresy

along with it. See Origen, _op. cit._ Bk III. c. 12.

Footnote 283:

Bréhier, “La Cosmologie Stoicienne,” _R.H.R._ t. LXIV. (1911), pp.

1-9.

Footnote 284:

A. W. Benn, _The Philosophy of Greece_, 1898, pp. 246, 255.

Footnote 285:

Kenyon, _Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the N. T._, 1901, p.

138, says, “Mr Gwilliam, whose opinion, as editor of the Peshitto, is

entitled to all respect, believes it to be the original translation of

the Scriptures into Syriac,” but thinks the question not yet decided.

Footnote 286:

Kenyon, _Greek Papyri_, p. 83.

Footnote 287:

1 Kings xviii. 40.

Footnote 288:

See the case of Dr Michael Hudson quoted by Sir Walter Scott from

Peck’s _Desiderata Curiosa_ in his notes to _Woodstock_; and

Cromwell’s letter to the Houses on the siege of Drogheda.

Footnote 289:

M. Cumont’s theory, that the Jewish colonies in Phrygia had introduced

the worship among the Pagans of Yahweh under the name of “Hypsistos”

is not convincing; but it is probable that in religious matters these

colonists gave more than they borrowed. The story of the king of

Adiabene who wished to turn Jew (see Chapter XII, _infra_) is

significant. Cf. the princes of the same kingdom who fell while

fighting valiantly in the Jewish ranks in the Sunday battle of Gabao

in which Cestius Gallus was defeated. See Josephus, _Bell_. Bk II. c.

19, § 2.

Footnote 290:

Tertullian, _de Praescript._ c. VIII.

Footnote 291:

Dill, _Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius_, p. 346.

Footnote 292:

_Ibid._ pp. 293, 294.

Footnote 293:

Like Callias. See Chapter II, vol. I. p. 76, _supra_.

Footnote 294:

Arrian, _Anabasis_, Bk IV. c. 9.

Footnote 295:

Tacitus, _Hist._ Bk III. c. 81.

Footnote 296:

Tacitus, _Annal._ Bk XV. c. 62.

Footnote 297:

_Ibid._ Bk XVI. c. 34.

Footnote 298:

Matter, _Hist. du Gnost._ t. I. p. 398.

Footnote 299:

Eusebius, _Eccl. Hist._ Bk IV. c. 6.

Footnote 300:

Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk I. c. 15.

Footnote 301:

Cf. Hadrian’s letter to Servian, Chapter II, vol. I. p. 86, _supra_.

Footnote 302:

Amélineau, _Le Gnosticisme Égyptien_, p. 30. Its early shape was

probably more magical and less ethical than its later developments,

because, as the same author (_P.S.B.A._ 1888, p. 392) says, for

several centuries it was only the lowest classes in Egypt that became

Christians.

Footnote 303:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 18, p. 197, Harvey. Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VII.

c. 28, p. 369, Cruice.

Footnote 304:

So Hippolytus, _loc. cit._, who copies Irenaeus’ statement word for

word. But something has evidently slipped out of the text. If Christ

and Satan were both the enemies of Yahweh, we should have the

συμφώνησις or fellowship declared impossible by St Paul in 2 Cor. vi.

15.

Footnote 305:

Matter, _Hist. du Gnost._ t. I. p. 349.

Footnote 306:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 18, p. 197, Harvey; Hippolytus, Bk VII. c. 28, p.

367, Cruice; Epiphanius, _Haer._ XXIII. c. 1, p. 135, Oehler.

Footnote 307:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 19, § 1, p. 199, Harvey. For the name Abraxas see

_ibid._ p. 203, and Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VII. c. 26, p. 361,

Cruice. As Harvey points out in his note, the passage containing it

has evidently slipped out of Irenaeus’ text and has been added at the

foot of the roll.

Footnote 308:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VII. c. 20, p. 344, Cruice. The revelations

in question must therefore have been made after the Resurrection.

Clement of Alexandria says that Basilides was a disciple of Glaucias,

the interpreter of Peter: _Strom._ Bk VII. c. 17.

Footnote 309:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VII. c. 21, pp. 345, 346, Cruice.

Footnote 310:

ἀθελήτως καὶ ἀνοήτως καὶ ἀναισθήτως. Hippolytus, _loc. cit._ This

στίγμα ἀμέριστον or “indivisible point” from which all things come is

mentioned in Simon Magus’ Apophasis (see Chapter VI, vol. I. p. 194,

_supra_) as well as in the Bruce Papyrus of Chapter X, _infra_.

Footnote 311:

Or like the Orphic egg from which Phanes came forth. See Chapter IV,

vol. I. p. 123, _supra_.

Footnote 312:

Ἦν, φησίν, ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ σπέρματι Υἱότης, τριμερὴς κατὰ πάντα, τῷ οὐκ

ὄντι θεῷ ὁμοούσιος, γενητὴ ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων, Hippolytus, _op. cit_, Bk

VII. c. 22, p. 349, Cruice. If these are Basilides’ actual words, he

would seem to have been the first author to make use of the expression

Homoousios.

Footnote 313:

Hippolytus, _op. et loc. cit._ p. 350, Cruice.

Footnote 314:

Ἔχειν μὲν αὐτὸ μετ’ αὐτῆς οὐκ ἠδύνατο· ἦν γὰρ οὐχ ὀμοούσιον· οὐδὲ

φύσιν εἶχε μετὰ τῆς Υἱότητος. Hippolytus, _op. et loc. cit._ p. 351,

Cruice.

Footnote 315:

Had Basilides or Hippolytus read Horace?

Footnote 316:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VII. c. 23, p. 353, Cruice.

Footnote 317:

Amélineau, _Le Gnosticisme Égyptien_, pp. 139-152. So Mallet, _Culte

de Neith à Sais_, Paris, 1888, pp. 213, 214, says that both Basilides

and Valentinus drew their doctrines from the late form of Egyptian

religion which he describes.

Footnote 318:

_Paut neteru._ Maspero, _Études Égyptol._, II. pp. 244, 245. Cf. the

whole of the luminous essay _Sur l’Ennéade_ in the same volume and

especially pp. 385, 386. Cf. Naville, _Old Egyptian Faith_, p. 117;

Erman, _Hist. Egyptian Religion_, p. 78.

Footnote 319:

_Tu enim, aiunt, omnes cognosce, te autem nemo cognoscat.... Non autem

multos scire posse haec, sed unum a mille, et duo a myriadibus._

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 19, § 3, p. 202, Harvey. Epiphanius, _Haer._ XXIV.

c. 5, p. 152, Oehler, while copying Irenaeus’ account puts it rather

differently, Ὑμεῖς πάντα γινώσκετε, ὑμᾶς δὲ μηδεὶς γινωσκέτω, which

probably represents Irenaeus’ own expression. One of the authors of

the _Pistis Sophia_ had evidently heard of Basilides’ remark about 1

in 1000. Cf. _Pistis Sophia_, p. 354, Copt.

Footnote 320:

So Irenaeus, _loc. cit._, p. 203, Harvey, makes the Basilidians say

that they were neither Jews nor Christians: _Et Judaeos quidem jam non

esse dicunt, Christianos autem nondum_—or, as Epiphanius, _loc. cit._,

more strongly puts it: Ἰουδαίους μὲν ἑαυτοὺς μηκέτι εἶναι φάσκουσι,

Χριστιανοὺς δὲ μηκέτι γεγενῆσθαι.

Footnote 321:

Epiphanius, _Pan. Haer._ XXXI. c. 2, p. 306, Oehler. Amélineau,

_Gnost. Ég._ p. 168, defends Epiphanius’ statement.

Footnote 322:

Matter, _Hist. du Gnost._ t. II. p. 37, says that Basilides died about

134 A.D. and that Valentinus’ teaching began to make itself heard

about the year following; but he gives no authorities for the

statement. Epiphanius, _loc. cit._, does say, however, that Valentinus

was later in time than Basilides and “Satornilus” (Saturninus). There

seems no authority for Matter’s statement that he was of Jewish

origin.

Footnote 323:

Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ p. 176, and Clement of Alexandria as there

quoted. Cf. King, _Gnostics_, p. 263.

Footnote 324:

Matter, _Hist. du Gnost._ t. II. p. 36.

Footnote 325:

Ἐπεὶ οὖν γέγονε πρώτη καὶ δευτέρα ἀναδρομὴ τῆς Υἱότητος, καὶ μεμένηκεν

αὐτοῦ τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἅγιον τὸν εἰρημένον τρόπον, στερεωμάτων ὑπερκοσμίων

καὶ τοῦ κόσμου μεταξὺ τεταγμένον: Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VII. c.

23, p. 353, Cruice.

Footnote 326:

Hippolytus, _loc. cit._ p. 354, Cruice.

Footnote 327:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk V. c. 8, pp. 158, 159, Cruice, says simply

in speaking of the Naassene writer: οὗτοι εἰσὶν οἱ τρεὶς ὑπέρογκοι

λόγοι “Καυλακαῦ, Σαυλασαῦ, Ζεησάρ.” “Καυλακαῦ” τοῦ ἄνω, τοῦ Ἀδάμαντος,

“Σαυλασαῦ,” τοῦ κάτω θνητοῦ, “Ζεησάρ” τοῦ ἐπὶ τὰ ἄνω ῥεύσαντος

Ἰορδάνου. “These are the three weighty words: Caulacau [the name] of

him who is above, [_i.e._] Adamas; Saulasau of the mortal one who is

beneath; Zeesar of the Jordan which flows on high.” Epiphanius,

_Haer._ XXV. c. 4, pp. 162, 164, Oehler, says that they are taken from

the words of Isaiah xxviii. 10, צו לצו קו לקו זעיר שם translated in

the A.V. “precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little”; but

the resemblance is not very close, and it is more probable that the

barbarous words of the text cover some sort of cryptogram. Irenaeus,

Bk Ι. c. 19, § 3, p. 201, Harvey, says of the Basilidians:

_Quemadmodum et mundus nomen esse, in quo dicunt descendisse et

ascendisse Salvatorem, esse Caulacau_, which Harvey says is

unintelligible. See Salmon, _s.h.v._ in _Dict. of Christian Biog._,

where he tries hard to explain the name and its use. Cheyne,

_Prophecies of Isaiah_, 2nd ed. vol. I. p. 162, would make this

Caulacau, however, equivalent to the “word of Jehovah” or Logos. Cf.

Renan, _Hist. du Peuple d’Israel_, Eng. ed. 1897, II. pp. 436, 437.

Footnote 328:

Tertullian, _adv. Valentinianos_, c. 5.

Footnote 329:

Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk II. c. 20; Bk IV. cc. 9, 138; Bk VI. c. 6. So

Origen, to whose frequent quotations from the Valentinian Heracleon we

owe all that we know of that shrewd Biblical critic. See A. E. Brooke,

_Fragments of Heracleon_, Cambridge Texts and Studies, vol. Ι. p. 4.

De Faye’s opinion that Clement and Origen were the only Fathers who

treated Gnosticism with intelligence and sometimes judicially has been

quoted above.

Footnote 330:

Epiphanius, Pan. _Haer._ XXXI. c. 1, p. 306, Oehler.

Footnote 331:

_Valentinus._... _Pythagoricus magis quam Christianus, vanam quandam

ac perniciosam doctrinam eructans, et velut arithmeticam, id est

numerositatis, novam fallaciam praedicans, multorumque animas

ignorantium captivavit_, Philastrius, _de Haeresibus liber_, c. 38, p.

43, Oehler, vol. I.

Footnote 332:

[_Valentiniani et Valentinus_] _Hi per orientem dispersi graviter dei

ecclesiam vulnerarunt_, Praedestinatus, Bk Ι. c. 11, p. 235, Oehler,

vol. Ι.

Footnote 333:

Eusebius, _Vita Constantini_, Bk III. cc. 64, 65.

Footnote 334:

Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, vol. III. c. 27, p. 174, Bury.

Footnote 335:

King, _Gnostics_, p. 13.

Footnote 336:

Irenaeus, Bk Ι. c. 1, § 1, pp. 8, 9, Harvey; Tertullian, _adv. Val._

c. VII. Is this the “Grace” for whose presence the soul prays in the

_apologiae_ of the Ophites? See last chapter.

Footnote 337:

Ὅλως, φησί, γεννητὸν οὐδέν, Πατὴρ δὲ ἦν μόνος ἀγέννητος, οὐ τόπον

ἔχων, οὐ χρόνον, οὐ σύμβουλον, οὐκ ἄλλην τινὰ κατ’ οὐδένα τῶν τρόπων

νοηθῆναι δυναμένην οὐσίαν: Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 29, p.

280, Cruice.

Footnote 338:

Diogenes Laertius, _Vit. Philosoph._ Bk VIII. c. 19.

Footnote 339:

Philippe Berger, “Les Stèles Puniques de la Bibliothèque Nationale,”

_Gazette Archéologique_, 11me ann. Paris, 1876, p. 123, says that the

Aryan genius sees atmospheric phenomena where the Semite imagines

persons who unite and give birth (personnes qui s’unissent et

s’engendrent les unes les autres). Renan, _Hist. du Peuple d’Israel_,

Paris, 1887, t. I. p. 49, shows that all Semites are naturally

euhemerists and therefore anthropomorphists.

Footnote 340:

Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ pp. 198 _sqq._, shows that Sige appears not

only in the “Italic School” of Valentinus’ followers, but also in the

Oriental School which is more likely to represent the teaching of

Valentinus himself. This may in fact be deduced from the words which

Hippolytus puts into his mouth (_op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 29, p. 281,

Cruice): Ἀγάπη, φησίν, ἦν ὅλος, ἡ δὲ ἀγάπη οὐκ ἔστιν ἀγάπη, ἐὰν μὴ ᾖ

τὸ ἀγαπώμενον. “He, he says, is all Love, and Love is not Love, unless

there is something to love.” Thus the Orphics called their Phanes or

firstborn god Eros.

Footnote 341:

As has been many times said, not “Only-begotten,” but “unique.” See

Badham in _Academy_, 5 Sept. 1896.

Footnote 342:

ταύτην [Sige] δὲ ὑποδεξαμένην τὸ σπέρμα τοῦτο καὶ ἐγκύμονα γενομένην,

ἀποκυῆσαι Νοῦν, ὅμοιόν τε καὶ ἶσον τῷ προβαλόντι, καὶ μόνον χωροῦντα

τὸ μέγεθος τοῦ Πατρός: Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 1, p. 9, Harvey: “and

she having received this seed and becoming pregnant, brought forth

Nous, like and equal to him who had projected him, and alone

containing the greatness of the Father.”

Footnote 343:

_Id._ Bk I. c. 1, § 1, pp. 9, 10, Harvey.

Footnote 344:

_Ibid._ p. 10, Harvey.

Footnote 345:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 29, p. 280, Cruice.

Footnote 346:

Tertullian, _adv. Valentinianos_, c. 7.

Footnote 347:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 5, § 2, p. 106, Harvey.

Footnote 348:

See p. 128 _infra_.

Footnote 349:

Tertullian, _adv. Valentinianos_, c. 36.

Footnote 350:

Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk I. c. 1.

Footnote 351:

_Ibid._ Bk I. cc. 7, 16.

Footnote 352:

_Ibid._ Bk II. c. 19.

Footnote 353:

_Ibid._ Bk II. c. 20.

Footnote 354:

_Ibid._ Bk II. c. 12.

Footnote 355:

See Chapter VI, vol. I. p. 174, _supra_.

Footnote 356:

Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk VII. c. 1.

Footnote 357:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 29, p. 281, Cruice.

Footnote 358:

_i.e._ Profound.

Footnote 359:

Not “self-existent,” but maker of his own φύσις or nature.

Footnote 360:

See n. 2, p. 98 _supra_.

Footnote 361:

Harvey reads here αἰώνιος “everlasting,” which makes at least as good

sense as the other.

Footnote 362:

Some memory of this seems to have enlivened the disputes between the

Nominalists and Realists of the XIIIth century. Cf. the wrangling of

the Doctors at the School of Salerno in Longfellow’s _Golden Legend_

I, with the Doctor Seraphic, maintain

That the word that’s not spoken, but conceived in the brain,

Is the type of Eternal Generation,

The spoken word is the Incarnation.

Footnote 363:

They are also probably places or receptacles. In the _Pistis Sophia_

we read repeatedly of the three χωρήματα and of the τόπος ἀληθείας.

Footnote 364:

Amélineau, _Gnost. Égypt._ pp. 200 _sqq._

Footnote 365:

So Hope Moulton, _Early Zoroastrianism_, 1913, p. 114, points out that

half of the Persian Amshaspands or archangels bear names expressing

“what Mazda is” and the other half “what Mazda gives.” There is much

likeness, as has been said, between the Amshaspands and the “Roots” of

Simon Magus.

Footnote 366:

It is worth noticing that these are the three “theological” virtues,

Faith, Hope, and Charity.

Footnote 367:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 23, pp. 269-271, Cruice, wishes to

make out that all this is derived from what he calls the “Pythagorean”

system of numbers. Anyone wishing to pursue these “silly cabalisms”

further is recommended to read Harvey’s Introduction to Valentinus’

system, _op. cit._ pp. cxv-cxvii.

Footnote 368:

Ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν δεκαδύο ὁ δωδέκατος καὶ νεώτατος πάντων τῶν εἰκοσιοκτὼ

Αἰώνων, θῆλυς ὢν καὶ καλούμενος Σοφία, κατενόησε τὸ πλῆθος καὶ τὴν

δύναμιν τῶν γεγεννηκότων Αἰώνων, καὶ ἀνέδραμεν εἰς τὸ βάθος τὸ τοῦ

Πατρός. “But the twelfth of the twelve, and the youngest of all the

eight and twenty aeons, who is a female and called Sophia, considered

the number and power of those aeons who were begotten (?) and went on

high to the height of the Father”: Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c.

30, p. 283, Cruice. The “eight and twenty aeons” shows that

Valentinus, according to Hippolytus, did _not_ reckon Bythos and Sige

in the first Ogdoad.

Footnote 369:

A further proof that the primitive doctrine of Valentinus did not give

a spouse to Bythos.

Footnote 370:

Ἐν μὲν γὰρ τῷ ἀγεννήτῳ, φησίν, ἔστι πάντα ὁμοῦ· (ὁμοῦ seems here to

mean “without distinction of time or place.” Cf. the “None is afore or

after other” of the Athanasian Creed) ἐν δὲ τοῖς γεννητοῖς, τὸ μὲν

θῆλυ ἔστιν οὐσίας προβλητικόν, τὸ δὲ ἄρρεν μορφωτικὸν τῆς ὑπὸ τοῦ

θήλεως προβαλλομένης οὐσίας. Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 30, p.

284, Cruice.

Footnote 371:

Καὶ τοῦτο ἐστί, φησίν, ὃ λέγει Μωϋσῆς· “ἡ δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀόρατος καὶ

ἀκατασκεύαστος.” “And this, he says, is the saying of Moses. ‘And the

earth was _invisible_ and unshapen’”—a curious variant of the A.V.,

Hippolytus, _loc. cit._ He goes on to say that this is “the good and

heavenly Jerusalem,” the land in which the children of Israel are

promised milk and honey. It should be noticed, however, that even this

unshapen being, like all the Sophias, was identified with the Earth.

Footnote 372:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 31, pp. 284, 285. Irenaeus, Bk I. cc.

1, 4, p. 21, Harvey, says that Monogenes [Nous] put forth (πρόβαλε)

the pair κατὰ προμήθειαν τοῦ Πατρὸς, apparently without the aid of his

partner Aletheia. Hippolytus’ account is the simpler, as making all

the Pleroma thus descend from a single pair, and is therefore,

probably, the earlier.

Footnote 373:

Hippolytus, _loc. cit._, says that this new aeon was called Ὅρος

“Horus,” or “The Limit,” because he separates the Pleroma or Fulness

from the Hysterema or Deficiency (_i.e._ that which lacks God), which

is one of those puns which will be familiar to all Egyptologists (see

Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, Eng. ed. p. 396, for other examples).

He is also said to have been called Metocheus or the Partaker, because

he shares in the Deficiency, doubtless as being partly outside the

Pleroma. His name of Horus was probably suggested by that of the old

Egyptian god whose figure must have been familiar to every

Alexandrian. In the IInd century A.D., this last generally appears

with hawk’s head and human body dressed in the cuirass and boots of a

Roman gendarme or _stationarius_, which would be appropriate enough

for a sentinel or guard.

Footnote 374:

Hippolytus, _loc. cit._ pp. 284, 285, Cruice.

Footnote 375:

Hippolytus, _loc. cit._ pp. 286, 287, Cruice. Christ and the Holy

Spirit, having discharged the duty laid upon them, have retired with

Sophia “the youngest of the aeons” within the Pleroma and cannot again

issue forth.

Footnote 376:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ c. 32: ἔδοξεν αὐτοῖς μὴ μόνον κατὰ συζυγίαν

δεδοξακέναι τὸν υἵον, δοξάσαι [δὲ] καὶ διὰ προσφορᾶς καρπῶν πρεπόντων

τῷ Πατρί. “It seemed good to them [the aeons of the Pleroma] not only

to magnify the Son by conjunction, but also by an offering of pleasing

fruits to the Father.” So in the mysteries of Isis, Osiris is called

the fruit of the vine Dionysos. See Athenagoras, _Legatid._ c. XXII.

Plainly Bythos and Nous or Monogenes are here represented as Father

and Son as in the Ophite myth. The new projection is necessary to

accord with the text about the whole Pleroma dwelling together bodily

in Jesus. Cf. Colossians i. 19.

Footnote 377:

The expression ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς ὁ μέγας is repeated by Clement of

Alexandria, _Protrept_. c. XII., possibly with reference to this

passage. It may be noticed, however, that Jesus is here also made the

Messenger or Ambassador of the Light as with the Ophites. It will be

seen later that he occupies the same place with the Manichaeans. Cf.

Chapter XIII, _infra_.

Footnote 378:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 32, p. 289, Cruice.

Footnote 379:

_Ibid._ p. 290, Cruice. Κατὰ τοῦτο τοίνυν τὸ μέρος, θνητή τις ἐστὶν ἡ

ψυχή, μεσότης τις οὖσα· ἔστι γὰρ Ἑβδομὰς καὶ Κατάπαυσις. “According to

this, therefore,” [he has just said that fire has a twofold power, for

there is a fire which devours everything and which cannot be

extinguished] “part (of the Demiurge) is a certain soul which is

subject to death, and a certain substance which occupies a middle

place. For it is a Hebdomad and a laying to rest.” The passage is not

easy, but seems to mean that some of the souls made by the Demiurge

are mortal, while others are susceptible of salvation. Cf. n. 1, p.

109, _infra_. The name Hebdomad evidently refers to the seven

astronomical heavens under the rule of the Demiurge, and the title

“Ancient of Days” identifies him, like the Jaldabaoth of the Ophites,

with the God of the Jews.

Footnote 380:

Called Ogdoadas or eighth, because it is next above the seven heavens;

but Sophia, the 28th, was the last of the aeons. We see, therefore,

that Valentinus, like the Ophites of the diagram, is reckoning

forwards and backwards in the most confusing way.

Footnote 381:

So Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 9, pp. 44, 45, Harvey, says that they [the

Valentinians] say that the seven heavens are endowed with intelligence

(νοητούς) and that they suppose them to be angels, and that the

Demiurge is himself an angel like God. Also that Paradise is a heaven

above the third, and that a fourth angel rules (?) there, and that

from him Adam took somewhat while talking to him. Whatever this story

may mean, it is curious to see how readily the Gnostics identified in

name a heavenly place with its ruler, as in the titles of kings and

peers.

Footnote 382:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 10, pp. 47, 48, Harvey, says that the Devil or

Cosmocrator and all the spiritual things of evil (τὰ πνευματικὰ τῆς

πονηρίας) were made out of the pain (λύπη) of Sophia, and that he is

the creation of the Demiurge, but knows what is above him, because he

is a spirit, while his creator is ignorant that there is anything

higher than himself, because he is only ruler of animal things (ψυχικὰ

ὑπάρχοντα). In this, which is probably the teaching of Ptolemy,

Valentinus’ successor is seen to be reverting to the Ophite ideas.

Hippolytus, who here probably gives us Valentinus’ own doctrine, says

on the other hand (_op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 33, pp. 290, 291, Cruice):

Ὥσπερ οὖν τῆς ψυχικῆς οὐσίας ἡ πρώτη καὶ μεγίστη δύναμις γέγονεν εἰκὼν

[the text is here restored by Cruice: τοῦ μονογενοῦς υἱοῦ, οὕτω τῆς

ὑλικῆς οὐσίας δύναμις] διάβολος, ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμον τούτου· τῆς δὲ τῶν

δαιμόνων οὐσίας, ἤτις ἐστὶν ἐκ τῆς ἀπορίας, ὁ Βεελζεβούδ. “As

therefore the first and greatest power of the animal substance (the

Demiurge) came into being as the image of the unique son (Nous), so

the power of the material substance is the Devil, the Ruler of this

world: and Beelzebud [the power] of the substance of demons which came

into being from the perplexity” (of Sophia). It has been shown

elsewhere (_P.S.B.A._ 1901, pp. 48, 49) that this Beelzebud or

Beelzebuth is written in the Magic Papyri Jabezebuth or Yahweh

Sabaoth, probably in pursuance of the parallelism which gives every

god or superior power his correspondent personality in the inferior or

evil world. In all magic, mediaeval or otherwise, Beelzebuth is

carefully distinguished from Satan.

Footnote 383:

Matthew x. 25, xii. 24, 27; Mark iii. 22; Luke xi. 15, have

βεελξεβούλ, while the Peshitto writes the more familiar Beelzebub. See

_P.S.B.A._ quoted in last note.

Footnote 384:

Called also the Heavenly Jerusalem. Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c.

32, p. 290, Cruice.

Footnote 385:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 10, p. 49, Harvey: Δημιουργήσαντα δὴ τὸν

κόσμον, πεποιηκέναι καὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον τὸν χοϊκόν· οὐκ ἀπὸ ταύτης δὲ τῆς

ξηρᾶς γῆς, ἀλλ’ ἀπὸ τῆς ἀοράτου οὐσίας, ἀπὸ τοῦ κεχυμένου καὶ ῥευστοῦ

τῆς ὕλης λαβόντα· καὶ εἰς τοῦτον ἐμφυσῆσαι τὸν ψυχικὸν διορίζονται.

“Having indeed fashioned the world, he (the Demiurge) made material

man; not taking him out of this dry earth, but from the unseen

substance, from the poured forth and liquid matter, and into him, they

declare, he breathed that which is of the soul.” Although this might

be taken for a Ptolemaic elaboration or embroidery of Valentinus’ own

doctrine, it is repeated in almost identical words in the _Excerpta

Theodoti_ of Clement of Alexandria, which represent the teaching of

the Oriental School, and it is therefore possibly the statement of

Valentinus himself. Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 34, p. 293,

Cruice, is quite in accord with this. Irenaeus says later (Bk I. c. 1,

§ 11) with reference to the body of Jesus: καὶ ὑλικὸν δὲ οὐδ’ ὁτιοῦν

εἰληφέναι λέγουσιν αὐτόν· μὴ γὰρ εἶναι τὴν ὕλην δεκτικὴν σωτηρίας.

“And they say that He took on Himself nothing whatever of matter; for

matter is not susceptible of salvation.” From which it is to be

inferred that Valentinus rejected the resurrection of the body.

Footnote 386:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 4, p. 23, Harvey, says that when Jesus, the

Joint Fruit of the Pleroma, was projected, Angels of the same kind as

himself (ὁμογενεῖς) were projected with him as a guard of honour. That

these are the spiritual spouses of the souls of men is confirmed by

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 34, p. 292, according to Cruice’s

emendation: Ὑποδιῄρηται δὲ καὶ τὰ ἐν τῇ Ὀγδοάδι, καὶ προβεβήκασιν ἡ

Σοφία, ἥτις ἐστὶ μήτηρ πάντων τῶν ζώντων κατ’ αὐτούς, καὶ ὁ κοινὸς τοῦ

Πληρώματος καρπὸς ὁ Λόγος, [καὶ] οἵτινες εἰσὶν ἄγγελοι ἐπουράνιοι,

πολιτευόμενοι ἐν Ἰερουσαλὴμ τῇ ἄνω, τῇ ἐν οὐρανοῖς. “The things which

are in the Ogdoad also are subdivided, and there proceed (from it)

Sophia who is, according to them, the Mother of All Living, and the

Joint Fruit of the Pleroma, the Logos, and there are certain heavenly

angels who are citizens of the Jerusalem which is above, that which is

in the heavens.” So later (_ibid._ p. 293, Cruice) ... οἵτινές εἰσι

λόγοι ἄνωθεν κατεσπαρμένοι ἀπὸ τοῦ κοινοῦ τοῦ Πληρώματος καρποῦ καὶ

τῆς Σοφίας εἰς τοῦτον τὸν κόσμον, κατοικοῦντες ἐν [σώμα]τι χοϊκῷ μετὰ

ψυχῆς, ὅταν δαίμονες μὴ συνοικῶσι τῇ ψύχῃ. “There are certain Logoi

sown from above in the world by the Joint Fruit of the Pleroma and

Sophia, which dwell in the material body with the soul, when there are

no demons dwelling with it.” Clement of Alexandria, in _Strom._ Bk V.

c. 14, points out that the notion of demons dwelling with the soul is

to be found in Plato, and quotes the passage from the Vision of Er

(_Rep._ Bk X. c. 15) about the souls of men between births each

receiving from the hand of Lachesis a demon as their guides through

life. It is more likely, however, to have been derived from the

Zoroastrian belief in the Fravashis or Ferouers, celestial spirits who

live with Ahura Mazda and the powers of light, until they are sent on

earth to be joined with the souls of men, and to combat the powers of

Ahriman (see L. C. Casartelli, _La Philosophie Religieuse du

Mazdéisme_, Paris, 1884, pp. 76-80, for references). Cf. Hope Moulton,

_op. cit._ c. VIII. _passim_.

Footnote 387:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 12, p. 59, Harvey: Τοὺς δὲ πνευματικοὺς

ἀποδυσαμένους τὰς ψυχὰς καὶ πνεύματα νοερὰ γενομένους, ἀκρατήτως καὶ

ἀοράτως ἐντὸς πληρώματος εἰσελθόντας νύμφας ἀποδοθήσεσθαι τοῖς περὶ

τὸν Σωτῆρα ἀγγέλοις. “And the Spirituals, or Pneumatis, doffing their

souls and becoming intelligent spirits, shall enter unperceived and

unseen within the Pleroma, and shall be given as brides to the angels

about the Saviour.” This suggestion, which completely shocked the

modesty of Tertullian, may be connected with the Zoroastrian idea of

the virgin who appears to the believer as his conductor at the bridge

Chinvat. See Chapter XII, _infra_.

Footnote 388:

This appears in the _Excerpta Theodoti_, fr. 63, Migne’s _Patrol.

Graeci_, t. IX. col. 689: Ἡ μὲν οὖν πνευματικῶν ἀνάπαυσις ἐν Κυριακῇ

ἐν Ὀγδοάδι ἡ Κυριακὴ ὀνομάζεται· παρὰ τῇ μητρὶ ἔχοντα τὰς ψυχὰς τὰ

ἐνδύματα ἄχρι συντελείας· αἱ δὲ ἄλλαι πισταὶ ψυχαὶ παρὰ τῷ Δημιονυργῷ·

περὶ δὲ τὴν συντέλειαν ἀναχώρουσι καὶ αὐτοὶ εἰς Ὀγδοάδας. Εἶτα τὸ

δεῖπνον τὸν γάμον κοινὸν πάντων τῶν σωζωθέντων, ἄχρις ἂν ἀπισωθῇ πάντα

καὶ ἄλληλα γνωρίσῃ. “Therefore the repose of the Spirituals in [the

dwelling] of the Lord, that is, in the Ogdoad, is called the Lord’s

rest” (cf. Irenaeus, Bk I. cc. 1, 9, p. 46, Harvey): “the garments

[_i.e._ natures] containing the souls [will remain] with the Mother

until the Consummation. And the other faithful souls (will remain)

with the Demiurge; and at the Consummation they will withdraw, and

they also will go into the Ogdoad. Then will be the Wedding Feast of

all those who are saved until all things shall be made equal and all

things mutually made known.” This heavenly banquet, of which we may be

quite sure Valentinus made the Marriage in Cana a type, will be met

with again in the worship of Mithras (Chapter XII, _infra_). But it

was also well known to the Orphics (see Abel’s _Orphica_, Frag. 227,

etc.), and the question repeats itself: Did the Orphics borrow the

idea from the Persians, or the Mithraists from the Orphics?

Footnote 389:

Valentinus may have found this doctrine in Egypt, where as Maspero

points out (_Ét. Égyptol._ I. p. 398) only the rich and noble were

thought to enjoy the life beyond the grave.

Footnote 390:

Valentinus’ remark about the Cosmocrator being superior in knowledge

to the Demiurge because he is a _spirit_ (see n. 1, p. 108 _supra_)

much complicates the problem, and brings us pretty near to the Dualism

of the Avesta. That all matter was in Valentinus’ opinion transitory

appears from Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 13, where it is said that when

all the seed scattered by Sophia in the world, _i.e._ the souls of the

Pneumatici, is gathered in, the fire which is within the Cosmos shall

blaze forth and after destroying all matter shall be extinguished with

it.

Footnote 391:

Clem. Alex., _Strom._ Bk II. c. 8, quotes an epistle of Valentinus in

which he speaks of the terror of the angels at the sight of man

because of the things which he spoke: διὰ τὸν ἀοράτως ἐν αὐτῷ σπέρμα

δεδωκότα τῆς ἄνωθεν οὐσίας, καὶ παρρησιαζόμενον “because of that

within him which yielded a germ of the substance on high, and spoke

freely.” So Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 10, p. 51, Harvey: Ἔλαθεν οὖν, ὡς

φασί, τὸν Δημιουργὸν ὁ συγκατασπαρεὶς τῷ ἐμφυσήματι αὐτοῦ ὑπὸ τῆς

Σοφίας πνευματικὸς ἀνθρώπων [ἄνθρωπος] ἀρρήτῳ [adj. δυνάμει καὶ]

προνοίᾳ. “It escaped the Demiurge, therefore, as they say, that the

man whom he had formed by his breath was at the same time made

spiritual by Sophia with unspeakable power and foresight.” So that, as

Irenaeus says a few lines later, man has his soul from the Demiurge,

his body from Chaos, his fleshly part (τὸ σαρκικὸν) from matter, and

his spiritual man from the Mother, Achamoth [_i.e._ חכמת “Wisdom”].

Footnote 392:

Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk IV. c. 13, quoting “a certain homily” (τις

ὁμιλία) of Valentinus: Ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς ἀθανατοί ἐστε, καὶ τέκνα ζωῆς ἐστε

αἰωνίας καὶ τὸν θάνατον ἠθέλετε μερίσασθαι εἰς ἑαυτούς, ἵνα δαπανήσητε

αὐτὸν καὶ ἀναλώσητε καὶ ἀποθάνῃ ὁ θάνατος ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ δι’ ὑμῶν. Ὅταν

γὰρ τὸν μὲν κόσμον λύητε, ὑμεῖς δὲ καταλύησθε, κυριεύετε τῆς κτίσεως

καὶ τῆς φθορᾶς ἁπάσης. “You were deathless from the beginning and the

children of life everlasting, and you wish to share out death among

you, in order that you may dissipate and destroy it and that death may

die in and by you; for when you put an end to the world and are

yourselves put an end to, you have rule over creation and all

corruption.” So one of the documents of the _Pistis Sophia_ speaks of

this world being finally consumed by the fire “which the perfect

wield.” It was doubtless such predictions which gave colour to the

charge of incendiarism made by the Roman authorities against the

Christians generally. For the translation of the pneumatics to the

Ogdoad see next note.

Footnote 393:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 31, p. 290, Cruice: Ἐὰν ἐξομοιωθῇ

τοῖς ἄνω ἐν Ὀγδοάδι, ἀθάνατος ἐγένετο καὶ ἦλθεν εἰς τὴν Ὀγδοάδα ἥτις

ἐστί, φησίν, Ἰερουσαλὴμ ἐπουράνιος· ἐὰν δὲ ἐξομοιωθῇ τῇ ὕλῃ, τουτέστι

τοῖς πάθεσι τοῖς ὑλικοῖς, φθαρτή ἐστι καὶ ἀπώλετο. “If [the soul] be

of the likeness of those on high in the Ogdoad, it is born deathless

and goes to the Ogdoad which is, he says, the heavenly Jerusalem; but

if it be of the likeness of matter, that is, if it belongs to the

material passions, it is corruptible and is utterly destroyed.”

Footnote 394:

ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος translated in the A.V. by “natural man” evidently

means in the Valentinian sense those who are _animated_ or have had

breathed into them the _breath_ of life merely. It has nothing to do

with soul as we understand the term.

Footnote 395:

Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ p. 225.

Footnote 396:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 36, pp. 297, 298, Cruice: Ἔδει οὖν

διορθωμένων τῶν ἄνω κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἀκολουθίαν καὶ τὰ ἐνθάδε τυχεῖν

διωρθώσεως. “Wherefore when things on high had been put straight, it

had to be according to the law of sequences that those here below

should be put straight also.”

Footnote 397:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ p. 297, Cruice: ἐδιδάχθη γὰρ ὑπὸ τῆς Σοφίας ὁ

Δημιουργός, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτὸς Θεὸς μόνος ὡς ἐνόμιζε, καὶ πλὴν αὐτοῦ

ἕτερος (οὐκ) ἔστιν· ἀλλ’ ἔγνω διδαχθεὶς ὑπὸ τῆς Σοφίας τὸν κρείττονα·

κατηχήθη γὰρ ὑπ’ αὐτῆς, καὶ ἐμυήθη καὶ ἐδιδάχθη τὸ μέγα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ

τῶν Αἰώνων μυστήριον, καὶ ἐξεῖπεν αὐτὸ οὐδενί, κ.τ.λ. “For the

Demiurge had been taught by Sophia that he was not the only God and

that beside him there was none other, as he had thought; but through

Sophia’s teaching he knew better. For he had been instructed and

initiated by Sophia, and had been taught the great mystery of the

Father and of the Aeons, and had declared it to none”—in support of

which the statement in Exodus (vi. 2, 3) about being the God of

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but “by my name Jehovah was I not known

unto them” is quoted. The identification by Valentinus of the Demiurge

with the God of the Jews is therefore complete.

Footnote 398:

σφάλματα “stumblings,” Hippolytus, _loc. cit._

Footnote 399:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk vi. c. 35, p. 295, Cruice. I have taken what

seems on comparison to be the original form of Valentinus’ teaching.

In the same chapter, Hippolytus tells us that his followers were

divided on the question of the composition of the body of Jesus—the

Italic School led by Heracleon and Ptolemy averring that it was

psychic and that at His baptism only the πνεῦμα came upon Him as a

dove, while the Oriental School of Axionicus and Bardesanes maintained

that it was pneumatic from the first. Cf. n. 2, p. 116 _infra_.

Footnote 400:

Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ p. 226. The _Excerpta Theodoti_, on which he

relies, says (fr. 78): Μέχρι τοῦ βαπτίσματος οὖν ἡ εἱμαρμένη, φασίν,

ἀληθής· μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο οὐκ ἔτι ἀληθεύουσιν οἱ ἀστρολόγοι. Ἔστι δὲ οὐ τὸ

λουτρὸν μόνον τὸ ἐλευθεροῦν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ γνῶσις τίνες ἦμεν, τί

γεγόναμεν, ποῦ ἦμεν, ἢ ποῦ ἐνεβλήθημεν, ποῦ σπεύδομεν, πόθεν

λυτρούμεθα, τί γέννησις τί ἀναγέννησις. “Until baptism then, they say

the destiny [he is talking of that which is foretold by the stars]

holds good; but thereafter the astrologers’ predictions are no longer

unerring. For the [baptismal] font not only sets us free, but is also

the _Gnosis_ which teaches us what we are, why we have come into

being, where we are, or whither we have been cast up, whither we are

hastening, from what we have been redeemed, why there is birth, and

why re-birth.” For baptism was to the Valentinian initiation, and a

mystagogue of Eleusis would have expressed himself no differently.

Footnote 401:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 13, pp. 60-62, Harvey; Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._

p. 226, and _Excerpta Theodoti_ there quoted.

Footnote 402:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 35, pp. 295, 296, Cruice: Ὁ δὲ

Ἰησοῦς, ὁ καινὸς ἄνθρωπος, ἀπὸ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου [καὶ τοῦ Ὑψίστου],

τουτέστι τῆς Σοφίας καὶ τοῦ Δημιουργοῦ, ἵνα τὴν μὲν πλάσιν καὶ

κατασκευὴν τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ ὁ Δημιουργὸς καταρτίσῃ, τὴν δὲ οὐσίαν

αὐτοῦ τὸ Πνεῦμα παράσχῃ τὸ Ἅγιον, καὶ γένηται Λόγος ἐπουράνιος ἀπὸ τῆς

Ὀγδοάδος γεννηθεὶς διὰ Μαρίας. “But Jesus, the new man, [has come into

being] by the Holy Spirit and by the Highest, that is by Sophia and

the Demiurge, so that the Demiurge might put together the mould and

constitution of His body and that the Holy Spirit might provide its

substance; and that He might become the Heavenly Logos ... when born

of Mary.” According to this, the body of Jesus was a “psychic” or

animal one; yet Hippolytus says immediately afterwards (p. 296,

Cruice), that it was on this that there was a division between the

Italic and the Oriental Schools of Valentinians, the former with

Heracleon and Ptolemy saying that the body of Jesus was an animal one,

the Holy Spirit coming on Him as a dove at His baptism, while the

Orientals with Axionicus and Bardesanes maintained that the body of

the Saviour was pneumatic or spiritual, “the Holy Spirit or Sophia and

the power of the Highest or Demiurgic art having come upon Mary, in

order that what was given to Mary might be put into form.” Apparently

Valentinus was willing to call the God of the Jews Ὕψιστος or

“Highest,” which M. Cumont thinks was his name in Asia Minor.

Footnote 403:

With the exception of that of St John, since the part of the _Pistis

Sophia_ which it is suggested is by Valentinus does not quote it. His

followers, however, knew of it, as in the _Excerpta Theodoti_ the

opening verse τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν παρὰ τὸν Θεὸν, καὶ

Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος is quoted with the comments of οἱ ἀπὸ τοῦ Οὐαλεντίνου

on it. Cf. Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ p. 209, where the passage is given

in n. 4.

Footnote 404:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 13, pp. 60-62, Harvey: Εἰσὶ δὲ οἱ λέγοντες...

Ἔπαθε δὲ λοιπὸν κατ’ αὐτοὺς ὁ ψυχικὸς Χριστός, καὶ ὁ ἐκ τῆς οἰκονομίας

κατεσκευασμένος μυστηριωδῶς, ἵν’ ἐπιδείξῃ [δι’] αὐτοῦ ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ ἄνω

Χριστοῦ, ἐκείνου τοῦ ἐπεκταθέντος τῷ Σταυρῷ, καὶ μορφώσαντος τὴν

Ἀχαμὼθ μόρφωσιν τὴν κατ’ οὐσίαν· πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα τύπους ἐκείνων εἶναι

λέγουσι. “And there are some” (probably the Anatolic or Oriental

School is meant) “who say.... And further the animal Christ, He who

had been mysteriously formed by dispensation, suffered so that the

Mother might show forth through Him the type of the Christ on high, of

him who is extended by Stauros, and gave shape to Achamoth as regards

substance: for they say that all things here are the types of others

there.”

Footnote 405:

Tertullian, _adv. Valentinianos_, c. IV.

Footnote 406:

That is, not a martyr, but one who had suffered for the faith without

losing his life.

Footnote 407:

Irenaeus, Bk III. c. 4, § 1, vol. II. p. 17, Harvey; Eusebius, _Hist.

Eccl._ Bk IV. c. 11. Cf. Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ p. 170.

Footnote 408:

Tertullian, _de Praescpt._ c. XXX. Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ p. 175,

objects to this.

Footnote 409:

Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ p. 172, n. 1; _ibid._ p. 175.

Footnote 410:

Epiphanius, _Pan., Haer._ XXXI. c. 2.

Footnote 411:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 35, p. 296, Cruice.

Footnote 412:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 2, p. 13, Harvey.

Footnote 413:

See n. 2, p. 116 _supra_.

Footnote 414:

Irenaeus, _Prooem._ p. 4, Harvey.

Footnote 415:

Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk IV. c. 9.

Footnote 416:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 38, p. 302, Cruice. So Irenaeus, Bk

I. c. 5, § 2, p. 101, Harvey. This appears to be hyperbole rather than

dualism.

Footnote 417:

Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ p. 189.

Footnote 418:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 35, p. 296, Cruice.

Footnote 419:

Albîrûnî, _Chronology of Ancient Nations_, ed. Sachau, 1879, pp. 27,

189.

Footnote 420:

De Faye, _Intro._ etc. p. 105, n. 1; Tertullian, _de Carne Christi_,

c. XVI.

Footnote 421:

See Hort, Bardaisan, in _Dict. Christian Biog._

Footnote 422:

Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ Bk IV. c. 30, says that Bar Daisan was first a

Valentinian and afterwards recanted, “but did not entirely wipe away

the filth of his old heresy.”

Footnote 423:

Rather a suspect name for a hymn writer.

Footnote 424:

Ephrem Syrus’ own date is given as 370 A.D., in _Dict. Christian

Biog._ _s.h.n._

Footnote 425:

See n. 3, p. 117 _supra_.

Footnote 426:

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 5, § 1, p. 98, Harvey.

Footnote 427:

See n. 2, p. 118 _supra_.

Footnote 428:

This may have been due either to their Egyptian extraction, or to the

necessity of putting the matter in a way that would be intelligible to

their Egyptian disciples. Cf. Naville, _Old Egyptian Faith_, 1909,

where he says that the Egyptian way of expressing abstract ideas is by

metaphors. Their ancestors, the Egyptians of the early Dynasties, when

they wanted to describe how gods of both sexes came forth from one

single male deity, did so by means of a very coarse image. See Budge,

Papyrus of Nesi-Amsu, _Archaeologia_, vol. LII. (1890), pp. 440, 441.

Cf. same author, _Hieratic Papyri in B.M._

Footnote 429:

Courdaveaux, _R.H.R._ Jan.-Fev. 1892, p. 293 and n. 7. Mgr Duchesne,

_op. cit._ pp. 244, 245, agrees that Clement looked upon the Son as a

creature only. Nor does there seem much difference between Valentinus’

view of the relation between the Demiurge and the Unknown Father, and

Clement’s remarks about the Son whom he calls timeless and unbegotten

and says that it is from Him that we must learn the “remote cause the

Father of the Universe”: _Strom._ Bk VII. c. 1. Cf. Justin Martyr, _c.

Trypho._ c. 56.

Footnote 430:

_R.H.R._ Jan.-Fev. 1891, p. 27. Tertullian’s own heresy was of course

Montanism. Harnack, _Hist. of Dogma_, Eng. ed., II. pp. 257, 258, says

indeed that Hippolytus’ own views of the Trinity coincide with those

of Valentinus and are a relic of polytheism.

Footnote 431:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 29, pp. 280, 281, Cruice.

Footnote 432:

2 John iv. 16. So Ἀγάπη “Love” is made the summit of the universe in

the Ophite Diagram. See Chap. VIII _supra_.

Footnote 433:

Neander, _Ch. Hist._ vol. II. p. 90.

Footnote 434:

Heracleon, quoted by Origen in _Commentaries on St John_, Bk X. c. 19.

Footnote 435:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk VI. c. 36, pp. 297, 298, Cruice.

Footnote 436:

_Ibid._ _loc. cit._ p. 298, Cruice.

Footnote 437:

Clem. Alex. _Strom._ Bk II. c. 20.

Footnote 438:

Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ p. 230; Neander, _Ch. Hist._ vol. II. p. 94.

Footnote 439:

Neander, _op. et loc. cit._ p. 150 and note, says Clement of

Alexandria declares that while Marcion wished to found a Church, the

other Gnostics endeavoured to found schools (διατριβαί) only. Clem.

Alex. _Strom._ Bk VII. c. 15, seems to be the passage referred to; but

in the present state of the text it may be doubted whether it will

bear the construction Neander puts upon it.

Footnote 440:

Irenaeus, Bk I. Prooem. p. 4, Harvey.

Footnote 441:

Cf. Renan, _L’Église Chrétienne_, p. 165. The manner in which the

Valentinians tried to make converts to their doctrines within the

Church is described by Irenaeus, Bk III. c. 15, § 2, pp. 78, 80,

Harvey, and Tertullian, _adv. Valentinianos_, c. 1.

Footnote 442:

Renan, _L’Église Chrétienne_, pp. 152, 153, for references.

Footnote 443:

Tertullian, _de Pudicitia_, and Pseudo Cyprian, _de Glor. Martyr._

_passim_.

Footnote 444:

See Chap. VII, n. 1, p. 8 _supra_.

Footnote 445:

Tertullian, _Scorpiace_, c. 1.

Footnote 446:

Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, Bury’s ed. vol. II. p. 13. Cf. what

Irenaeus, Βk I. c. 1, § 8, p. 36, Harvey, says as to the high price

charged by the Valentinians for their teaching.

Footnote 447:

Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk IV. c. 4, §§ 1-15.

Footnote 448:

Irenaeus, Bk I. cc. 7-8 _passim_, pp. 114-156, Harvey.

Footnote 449:

Thus he says that the Dove signifies Alpha and Omega, the first and

the last, because Α and Ω, like περιστερά “dove,” have the numerical

value of 801.

Footnote 450:

A similar miracle is performed by the risen Jesus in the Bruce

Papyrus. See Chap. X _infra_.

Footnote 451:

Verse:

_a._

Φῶς πατρικὸν ποθέουσα, σύναιμε, σύνευνε, σοφή μου,

λούτροις χρεισαμένη Χ(ρειστο)ῦ μύρον ἄφθιτον, ἁγνὸν,

Αἰώνων ἔσπευσας ἀθρ[ῆ]σαι θεῖα πρόσωπα,

βουλῆς τῆς μεγάλης μέγαν ἄγγελον, υἱὸν ἀληθῆ,

[εἰς ν]υμφῶνα μολοῦσα καὶ εἰς [κόλπ]ους ἀνόρουσα[?]

[Αἰώνων πα]τρικοὺς κ[αὶ]....

_b._

Οὐκ ἔσχεν κοινὸν βιότου [τ]έλος ἥδε θανοῦσα·

κάτθανε καὶ ζώει καὶ ὁρᾷ φάος ἄφθιτον ὄντως·

ζώει μὲν ζωοῖσι, θανὲν δὲ θανοῦσιν ἀληθῶς.

γαῖα, τί θαυμάζεις νέκυος γένος; ὴ πεφόβηται;

(Boeckh’s) _C. I. G._ 9595_a_, t. I. and p. 594.

“Longing for the light of the Father, partner of my blood, partner

of my bed, O my wise one!

Anointed at the font with the incorruptible and pure myrrh of

Christ,

Thou hast hastened to behold the divine faces of the Aeons, [and]

The Great Angel of the Great Council, the true Son.

Thou hast gone to the nuptial couch and hast hurried to the

fatherly bosoms of the Aeons

And....

Though dying, she has not suffered the common end of life,

She is dead, and yet lives and actually beholds the light

incorruptible,

To the living she is alive, and dead only to those really dead.

O Earth, why dost thou wonder at this new kind of shade? or dost

thou fear it?”

This was engraved on a _cippus_ of white marble found about three

miles from Rome in the Via Latina and is now in the Kircher Museum.

Renan’s translation is given in _Marc Aurèle_, p. 147. That the lady’s

name was Flavia seems evident from the acrostic contained in the first

verse. She must also have been a pneumatic or spiritual from her

husband’s confident expectation that she would be raised to the

Heavenly Jerusalem and by his assertion of her deathlessness. Hence it

may be inferred that Valentinus’ disciples even when of the highest

spiritual rank were allowed to marry. Cf. Clem. Alex. _Strom_. Bk III.

c. 17. The name “Angel of the Great Council” is applied to Christ by

Justin Martyr (_c. Tryph._ c. 126) who says that He is so called by

Ezekiel. The passage does not appear in the Canon.

Footnote 452:

Matter, _Hist. du Gnosticisme_, t. II. p. 126, quoting St Jerome.

Footnote 453:

Epiphanius, _Haer._ XXXIII. c. 3, pp. 401-413, Oehler. Cf. “the Elect

Lady” to whom 2 John is addressed.

Footnote 454:

It should be remembered that Valentinus had been dead some 50 years

when Irenaeus and Hippolytus wrote.

Footnote 455:

Amélineau, _Gnost. Ég._ Chap. V., pp. 281-320 _passim_.

Footnote 456:

Julian, _Ep._ 43, tells Hecebolius that the Arians of Edessa, “puffed

up by their riches,” have maltreated the Valentinians, and that he has

therefore ordered the confiscation of the estates and treasure of the

Church of Edessa. It is doubtful whether the edict can have been

enforced before the emperor’s death abrogated it.

Footnote 457:

We get at a sort of minimum date for its persistence from the career

of St Ambrose, who had been a Valentinian in his youth (see Eusebius,

_Hist. Eccl._ Bk VI. c. 18), and was made bishop of Milan in 374 A.D.,

he being then 34 years old. The sect therefore had adherents in Italy

about 360 A.D.

Footnote 458:

It may be news to some that an attempt has lately been made to revive

in Paris the heresy of Valentinus. See the _Contemporary Review_ for

May, 1897, or Jules Bois’ _Les Petits Religions de Paris_, where a

full account of the services and hymns of “L’Église Gnostique” is

given. Its founder, Jules Doinel, was reconverted to Catholicism some

time before his death. Its present head is M. Fabre des Essarts.

CHAPTER X

THE SYSTEM OF THE PISTIS SOPHIA AND ITS RELATED TEXTS[459]

In 1765, the British Museum purchased from the celebrated antiquarian,

Dr Askew, a parchment MS. written in Coptic[460]. On palaeographic

grounds it is said to be not earlier than the VIth century A.D., which

agrees fairly with its state of preservation and the fact that it is

written on both sides of the skins so as to present the appearance of a

modern book[461]. Woide, then librarian of the Museum and pastor of the

King’s German Chapel at St James’, published some extracts from it in

his _Appendix to the Codex Alexandrinus_ in 1799, and Dulaurier gave

others in the _Journal Asiatique_ in 1847[462]. It remained, however,

untranslated until 1850, when Maurice Schwartze, a young German scholar

who was sent over here to study our MSS. at the expense of the king of

Prussia, turned it into Latin; and he having died soon after, his

translation was published the following year by the learned Petermann.

The British Museum text is written throughout in the Sahidic dialect;

and is the work of more than one scribe; but it seems to be agreed by

those who have studied it with knowledge that the documents it contains

are neither continuous nor necessarily related; and that it is in fact a

series of extracts from earlier MSS.[463] Of these documents, the second

commences with a heading, in a handwriting other than that of the scribe

of this part, reading “the Second Book of Pistis Sophia”; but as such a

heading implies that the foregoing document was the First Book of Pistis

Sophia, the whole MS. is generally known by that name[464].

The story presented in these two documents, although uncompleted, is, so

far as it goes, perfectly consistent, and presupposes belief in a

Gnostic system resembling at once those of the Ophites and of

Valentinus. An introduction in narrative form informs us that Jesus,

after rising from the dead, spent eleven years in teaching His disciples

the arrangement of the heavenly places “only so far as the places” of a

power whom He calls “the First Mystery,” and declares to be “before all

mysteries,” and to be “within the veil,” being “the father of the

likeness of a dove[465].” The result of this limitation was, we are

told, that the disciples were ignorant not only that any power existed

higher than the First Mystery, but also of the origin of the “places” or

worlds of those material and _quasi_-material powers who, here as in the

earlier systems, are responsible for the governance of the world and the

fate of mankind. While the disciples are sitting with Jesus on the Mount

of Olives, however, He is carried away from them into Heaven by a great

“power” or shape of light which descends upon Him. On His return, He

tells them that this shape was “a vesture of light” or His heavenly

nature which He had laid aside before being born into this world[466].

He also informs them that, when He first came into this world before His

Incarnation, He brought with Him twelve powers which He took from “the

Twelve Saviours of the Treasure house of Light[467],” and planted them

in the mothers of the twelve Apostles, so that when these last were born

into the world they were given these powers instead of receiving, like

other men, souls “from the archons (or rulers) of the aeons[468].” He

also describes how He appeared among the archons of the Sphere in the

likeness of the angel Gabriel, and found among them the soul of “Elijah

the Prophet[469].” This He caused to be taken to “the Virgin of Light,”

that it might be planted in Elizabeth, the mother of John the

Baptist[470], and He adds that He bound to it a power which He took from

“the Little Iao the Good, who is in the middle.” The object of this was,

we are told, that John the Baptist might prepare the way of Jesus and

baptize with water for the remission of sins.

Jesus then proceeds to describe His own Incarnation. When speaking,

still in the shape of the angel Gabriel, with Mary His “mother after the

body of matter,” He planted in her the first power he had received from

“Barbelo,” which was the body He had worn “in the height[471]”; and, in

the place of the soul, a power which He received from “the Great Sabaoth

the Good, who is in the place of the right.” After this digression, He

resumes His account of what happened after His receiving the vesture of

light on the Mount of Olives, and declares that He found written in this

vesture five mysterious words “belonging [viz. in the language of] to

the height[472],” which He interprets to His disciples thus:

“The mystery who is without the world, through whom all things

exist, he is the giving forth and the lifting up of all and he has

put forth all the emanations and the things which are in them all.

And it is through him that all the mysteries exist and all their

places. Come unto us, for we are thy fellows and thy members[473]!

We are one with thee, for thou and we are one. This is the First

Mystery which existed since the beginning in the Ineffable One

before he [_i.e._ the First Mystery] went forth, and we all are his

name[474].

“Now therefore we all await thee at the last boundary which is the

last mystery from within[475]. This also is part of us. Now

therefore we have sent to thee thy vesture which is thine from the

beginning, which thou didst place in the last boundary, which is the

last boundary from within, until the time should be fulfilled

according to the commandment of the First Mystery. And now that the

time is fulfilled, clothe thyself in it! Come unto us, for we all

stand near to thee that we may clothe thee with all the glory of the

First Mystery by His command. Which glory is as two vestures,

besides that which we have sent unto thee. For thou art worthy of

them since thou art preferred before us and wast made before us.

Wherefore the First Mystery has sent thee by us the mystery of all

his glory, which is as two vestures. In the first is the glory of

all the names of all the mysteries and of all the emanations which

are in the ranks of the receptacles of the Ineffable One. And in the

second vesture is the glory of the names of all the mysteries and of

all the emanations which are in the ranks of the two receptacles of

the First Mystery. And in this vesture which we have sent thee now,

is the glory of the name of the Recorder who is the First

Precept[476], and the mystery of the Five Marks[477], and the

mystery of the great Legate of the Ineffable One who is the same as

that Great Light[478], and the mystery of the Five Prohegumeni who

are the same as the Five Parastatae[479]. And there is also in that

vesture the glory of the name of the mystery of all the ranks of the

emanations of the Treasure-house of Light, and of their Saviours,

and the ranks of those ranks which are the Seven Amen and which are

the Seven Sounds, and also the Five Trees[480] and also the Three

Amen, and also the Saviour of the Twins who is the boy of a

boy[481], and the mystery of the Nine Guards of the Three Gates of

the Treasure-house of Light. And there is also within it the glory

of the name which is on the right, and of all those who are in the

middle. And there also is the glory of the name of the Great Unseen

One, who is the Great Forefather[482], and the mysteries of the

Three Triple Powers, and the mystery of all their places, and the

mystery of all their unseen ones, and of all the dwellers in the

Thirteenth Aeon, and the name of the Twelve Aeons with all their

Archons, all their Archangels, all their Angels and all the dwellers

in the Twelve Aeons, and all the mystery of the name of all the

dwellers in Heimarmene[483], and all the heavens, and the whole

mystery of the name of all the dwellers in the Sphere and their

firmaments with all they contain and their places. Lo, then, we have

sent unto thee this vesture, which none knoweth from the First

Precept downward, because that the glory of its light was hidden

within it, and the Spheres and all the places from the First Precept

downward knew it not. Hasten, then, do on the vesture, and come unto

us, for we have remained near thee to clothe thee with these two

vestures by the command of the First Mystery until the time fixed by

the Ineffable One should be fulfilled. Now, then, the time is

fulfilled. Come unto us quickly, that we may clothe thee with them

until thou hast accomplished the entire ministry of the completion

of the First Mystery, the ministry which has been laid upon thee by

the Ineffable One. Come then unto us quickly in order that we may

clothe thee with them according to the command of the First Mystery.

For yet a little while, a very little while, and thou wilt cease to

be in the world. Come then quickly, that thou mayest receive all the

glory which is the glory of the First Mystery.”

This long address, in which the whole arrangement of the universe as the

author supposes it to exist is set forth, is clearly the utterance of

the heavenly powers belonging to the higher worlds whom Jesus has left

on His descent to earth. Unintelligible as it seems at first sight, it

can be explained to some extent by the tenets of the Ophites described

in Chapter VIII, which formed, as we have seen, the basis on which

Valentinus also constructed his system. The Ineffable One may be assumed

to be the Bythos whom both the Ophites and Valentinus called by that

epithet[484] and held to be the first and final source of all being.

Although something is said here and elsewhere in the book of his

“receptacles” and “places[485],” no particulars of them are given, they

being apparently reserved for a future revelation[486]. The First

Mystery, however, is spoken of later as a “Twin Mystery, looking inward

and outward[487],” which seems to correspond to the Father-and-Son of

the Ophite diagram. Later in the book, Jesus reveals to His disciples

that He Himself is the First Mystery “looking outward[488],” and this

seems to show that the author’s conception of the relations between Him

and the First Person of the Trinity did not differ much from that of the

Catholic Church[489]. The world of this First Mystery extends downwards

as far as what is here, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews[490], called

“the veil,” which is perhaps the veil of sense separating all things

contaminated by mixture with matter from the Divine. This First Mystery

is said to consist of twenty-four “mysteries”; but these do not seem to

be, as in the older systems, places or worlds, but rather attributes or

aspects of the Deity which together go to make up His whole being, as a

number of letters are required to make up a word or name[491]. But from

some words of Jesus given later in the book, it would appear that its

author did not at all discard the view of the earlier Ophites that the

Supreme Being was to be figured as of human form, for we find him

remarking that the First Mystery himself proceeded from the “last limb”

or member of the Ineffable One[492]. For the rest, it need only be

pointed out here that the powers who address Jesus in the quotation just

given also speak of themselves as His “members”; but that

notwithstanding this, they must be looked upon as purely spiritual

entities having no direct connection with any material forms except as

paradigms or patterns[493]. Whatever the worlds which they inhabit may

be thought to be like—and Jesus more than once tells His disciples that

there is nothing on earth to which they can be compared—we can only say

that they are two in number, and that it is the two “vestures of light”

sent to Jesus on the Mount of Olives, or, in other words, His two

natures, which give Him the means of ascending to the heavens of the

Ineffable One and of the First Mystery respectively. If the author ever

intended to discuss them further, he has certainly not done so in the

_Pistis Sophia_ properly so called[494].

On the other hand, the worlds and powers existing “below the veil,” or

within the comprehension of the senses, and symbolized by the third and

inferior “vesture” sent to Jesus, are indicated even in the address

given above with fair particularity. Their names and relative positions

are not easy to identify; but, thanks to some hints given in other parts

of the book, the universe below “the veil” may be reconstructed

thus[495]:—Its upper part contains the Treasure-house of light where, as

its name implies, the light as it is redeemed from matter is stored up.

There are below it five other worlds called the Parastatae or Helpers,

in one of which Jesus is to reign during the millennium, and the ruler

of the last of which arranges the pure spirits who dwell below it[496].

The highest spirit in the Treasure-house is called the First Precept or

the Recorder, and with him is associated the Great Light, who is said to

be the “legate” of the Ineffable One[497]. In the Treasure-house there

are also the orders of spirits set out in the address just quoted, the

only two to which it is necessary to refer here being the Five

Trees[498] and the Twelve Saviours. From the Five Trees emanated the

great “Powers of the Right Hand” to be next mentioned; while, as is

before described, the Twelve Saviours furnished the spotless souls

required for the Twelve Apostles[499]. The lower part of the same

universe is called the Kerasmos or Confusion, because here the light,

which in the upper part is pure, is mingled with matter. It is divided

in the first instance into three parts, the Right-hand, the Middle, and

the Left-hand[500]. Of these, the Right-hand contains the spirits who

emanated from the Five Trees of the Treasure-house. At their head is

Jeû, who has supreme authority over all the Confusion[501]. He is called

the Overseer of the Light, and in his name we may possibly recognize a

corruption of the Hebrew Yahweh. With him and of similar origin is

Melchisedek,[502] the Inheritor, Receiver or Purifier of the Light,

whose office it is to take the portions of light as they are redeemed

into the Treasure-house[503]. Another emanation from the Five Trees is

an otherwise unnamed Guard of the Veil of the Treasure-house[504] which

seems to be the veil dividing the Treasure-house from the Place of the

Right-hand, and there are two others of equal rank who are called simply

the two Prohegumeni or Forerunners[505]. Below these again is the Great

Sabaoth the Good, who supplied, as we have seen, the soul which was in

Jesus at His birth, and who is himself the emanation, not of any of the

Five Trees, but of Jeû[506]. He seems to have a substitute or messenger

called the little Sabaoth the Good, who communicates directly with the

powers of matter. In the Middle come the powers who are set over the

reincarnation of souls and the consequent redemption of mankind. Of

these, the only two named are “the Great Iao the Good[507],” spoken of

in one passage as the Great Hegumen (or Leader) of the Middle[508]. He,

too, has a minister called “the Little Iao” who supplies the “power”

which, with the soul of Elijah, animated the body of John the

Baptist[509]. He also has twelve deacons or ministers under him[510].

The other great Leader of the Middle is the Virgin of Light[511]. She it

is who chooses the bodies into which the souls of men shall be put at

conception, in discharge of which duty she sends the soul of Elijah into

the body of John the Baptist, her colleague Iao’s share in the work

being apparently limited to providing the “power” accompanying it. She

has among her assistants seven other virgins of light[512], after whose

likeness Mary the Mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene are said to have

been made, and we also read of “receivers” who are under her

orders[513]. The light of the Sun “in its true shape” is said to be in

her place[514], and there is some reason for thinking that she is to be

considered as the power which directs the material Sun, while her

colleague Iao has the same office as regards the Moon[515].

We now come to the places of the left, the highest of which seems to be

that which is called the Thirteenth Aeon. This is a part of the universe

the existence of which Jesus conceals from His disciples until He

receives his “vestures,” and there is much mystery as to its origin. It

seems to have been governed in the first instance by a triad consisting

of an unnamed power referred to as the Great Forefather or the Great

Unseen One, a female power called Barbelo[516], and a second male called

the Authades or Proud God[517] who plays a principal part in the episode

of Pistis Sophia which forms the ostensible theme of the book. Of the

Great Forefather, we are told nothing of importance, but what is said of

the female power Barbelo bears out fully the remark which Hippolytus

attributes to Valentinus that among the lesser powers or aeons the

female merely projects the substance, while it is the male which gives

form to it[518]. It is doubtless for this reason that it is from her

that the body of Jesus is said to have come—i.e. that she provided the

matter out of which it was formed in the first instance, and which had,

as He says later in the present book, to be purged and cleansed by

Himself[519]. She is also spoken of throughout as the origin of all the

matter within the world of sense[520]. This triad, constantly referred

to throughout the book as the Three Tridynami or Triple Powers, have put

forth, before the story opens, twenty-four other powers arranged in

twelve syzygies or pairs who are spoken of as the Twenty-four Unseen

Ones, and who inhabit with them the Thirteenth Aeon. Only one of these

is named and this is the inferior or female member of the last syzygy.

She is named Pistis Sophia, and gives, as we have seen, her name to the

book[521].

We now pass from the unseen world, which can nevertheless be

comprehended as being in part at least material, to the starry world

above us which is plainly within the reach of our organs of sense. The

controlling part in this is taken by the powers called the Twelve Aeons,

who are ruled before the advent of Jesus by a power called, like the

Supreme Being in the Ophite system, Adamas[522]. As they are called in

one passage the 12 hours of the day, it may be concluded that they are

the 12 zodiacal signs or, in other words, the Zodiac or 12

constellations of fixed stars through which the sun appears to pass in

his yearly course[523]. Although nowhere expressly stated, it may be

concluded that they emanated from the last member of the triad of the

Left, _i.e._ the Authades, who is here said to have been disobedient in

refusing “to give up the purity of his light,” no doubt when the earth

was made, and is accused of ambition in wishing to rule the Thirteenth

Aeon. Through his creature, Adamas their king, he induces the rulers of

the Twelve Aeons to delay the redemption of the light from matter. It is

from their matter that are made the souls, not only of men, but of

beasts, birds, and reptiles[524], and if they were allowed to do as they

pleased, the process would go on for ever, as it is the habit of these

Archons “to turn about and devour their own _ejecta_, the breath of

their mouths, the tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their bodies,”

so that the same matter is used over and over again[525]. Below the

starry world comes the Sphere of Heimarmene or Destiny, so called

apparently because both the earthly and heavenly lot of each soul is

determined on its downward passage through it, and below that again the

Sphere simply so called, which is the visible firmament apparently

stretched above us. The Archons of the Aeons, of whom Adamas is the

chief, rule their own and both these lower spheres, and the only

hindrance to their dilatory manoeuvres prior to the advent of Jesus was

caused by Melchizidek the Receiver of the Light[526], who came among

them at stated times, took away their light, and, after having purified

it, stored it up in the Treasure-house. This was apparently done through

the medium of the sun and moon, who seem to have acted in the matter as

the “receivers” of Melchizidek[527].

We can now resume the narrative of the book which has been interrupted

in order that a description of the universe through which Jesus passes

on His ascension might be given. He tells His disciples that clothing

Himself in His third or least glorious “vesture,” He flew up to the

firmament, the gates of which opened spontaneously to give Him

passage[528]. Entering in, the Archons there were all struck with terror

at the light of His vesture, and wondered how the “Lord of the

Universe[529]” passed through them unnoticed on his descent to

earth[530]. The same scenes are repeated when He enters the Sphere of

Destiny, and again when He reaches the Twelve Aeons or Zodiac of fixed

stars. Before leaving the Twelve Aeons, Jesus takes away from its rulers

a third part of their power, and alters their course, so that its

direction is changed every six months. This He does, as He tells His

disciples, for a double reason. He thereby prevents the Aeons from

devouring their own matter, and so delaying the redemption of the light,

and He further hinders their movements from being used by mankind in the

divination and magic which the sinning angels taught when “they came

down”—a clear reference to the story in Genesis of the fall of the

angels as amplified in the _Book of Enoch_. This alteration, He

declares, was foreshadowed by the text “I have shortened the times for

my elect’s sake[531].”

Passing upward to the Thirteenth Aeon, Jesus tells His disciples that he

found Pistis Sophia dwelling alone in a place immediately below it, and

He here makes a long digression to recount her history. She is, as has

been said above, one of the twenty-four invisible but material

emanations projected by the Great Unseen Forefather and his consort

Barbelo, and formerly dwelt with her own partner, whose name is not

mentioned, in the Thirteenth Aeon[532]. But one day happening to look

forth from her place and beholding the light of the Treasure-house, she

longed to ascend towards it and began to sing praises to it. This

angered exceedingly the Authades or Proud God, the Third Triple Power or

chief of the Thirteenth Aeon, who had already, as has been said, shown

his disobedience in refusing to give up his light. Out of envy and

jealousy of Pistis Sophia, he sends forth from himself a great power

with a lion’s face who is “half flame and half darkness” and bears the

name of Jaldabaoth, which we have met with before among the

Ophites[533]. This Jaldabaoth is sent below into the regions of Chaos,

the unformed and shapeless darkness which is either below or surrounds

the earth[534], and when Pistis Sophia sees him shining there, she

mistakes his light for the light of the Treasure-house, and, leaving her

consort, plunges downwards towards it. She is instantly seized by

Jaldabaoth and other wicked powers sent forth by the Proud God, and

grievously tormented with the object of taking from her her light, so

that she may never again be able to return to her own place. In this

plight, she sings several Metanoiae or hymns of penitence to the light,

and after seven of these, Jesus, as He says, “from pity and without

commandment,” raises her to the uppermost parts of Chaos where she is

slightly more at ease[535]. She continues here to sing hymns of

penitence, but is tormented afresh until, after her ninth repentance,

Jesus receives command from the First Mystery to succour her. This he

does in a battle with fresh emanations from the Authades, including one

in the shape of “a flying arrow[536].” Adamas, the king of the wicked

Eons, also sends a power to the assistance of Jaldabaoth, and the other

emanations of the Proud God turn into serpents, a basilisk with seven

heads, and a dragon[537]. The powers of light sent by Jesus, however,

defeat all her enemies, and the archangels Gabriel and Michael bear her

aloft and establish her in the place below the Thirteenth Aeon, where

Jesus finds her on His ascension as here recorded. But this is not the

end. Jesus tells her that when “three times” are fulfilled[538], she

will be tormented again. This happens as predicted immediately before

the descent of the “vesture” on Him on the Mount of Olives. Thereupon,

He delivers her for the last time and restores her to her place in the

13th Aeon, where she sings to him a final hymn of thanksgiving.

This completes the episode of Pistis Sophia, and the rest of the book is

filled with the questionings upon it of Mary Magdalene and the other

disciples, among whom are prominent Mary the Mother of Jesus, Salome,

Martha, St John the Divine, St Philip, St Thomas, and St Matthew, to

which last-named three is said to be entrusted the recording of the

words of Jesus, together with St Peter, St James and St Andrew. This has

led some commentators to think that the work may possibly be the

_Interrogations of Mary_ (Ἐρωτήσεις Μαρίας), concerning which Epiphanius

says that two versions, a greater and a lesser, were used by several

Gnostic sects[539]. These questionings and the answers of Jesus are

extremely tedious, and include the comparison of the hymns of Pistis

Sophia, fourteen in all, with certain named Psalms and Odes of David and

Solomon of which they are said to be the “interpretation[540].” In the

course of this, however, the purpose of the book is disclosed, and

appears as the revelation of the glories awaiting the believer in the

world to come, the coming of the Millennium, and the announcement that

Jesus has brought the “mysteries” to the earth for the salvation of men.

But before describing these, it may be as well to draw attention to the

manifest likeness between the theology and cosmology of the _Pistis

Sophia_ proper and what has been said above of the tenets of the Ophites

and of Valentinus.

At first sight, the _Pistis Sophia_ in this respect seems to be almost

entirely an Ophite book. The Ineffable One, as has been said, is not to

be distinguished from the Ophite Bythos, while “the First Mystery

looking inward and outward” is a fairly close parallel to the First Man

and the Son of Man of the Ophite system. The names Sabaoth, Iao, and

Jaldabaoth also appear both here and with the Ophites, although the

last-named power now occupies a greatly inferior position to that

assigned to him by them, and from a merely ignorant power has now become

an actively malignant one. The work assigned to Sophia Without in the

older system is here taken in the Place of the Middle by the Virgin of

Light, who is throughout the working agent in the salvation of mankind;

but it should be noted that she here operates directly and not through a

grosser power as with the Ophites. The idea of a female divinity

ordering the affairs of men for their good as a mother with her children

had already gained possession of the heathen world in the character of

(the Greek) Isis, and in the hint here given as to the resemblance

between her delegates and the Virgin Mary, we may see, perhaps, the road

by which the Christian world travelled towards that conception of the

Theotokos or Mother of God which played such an important part in its

later creed. Among the powers inferior to her the names and places are

changed, but the general arrangement remains nearly the same as with the

Ophites, especially the Ophites of the diagram. The starry world in

particular here comes much into evidence, and is given more important

functions than in any other Gnostic system except the Ophite[541]. The

“Gates” of the firmaments are met with both here and in the Ophite

prayers or “defences” recorded by Origen[542], and an allusion put by

this last into the mouth of Celsus and not otherwise explained, to

“gates that open of their own accord,” looks as if Origen’s heathen

adversary may himself have come across the story of the _Pistis

Sophia_[543]. The general hostility of this starry world and its rulers

towards mankind is a leading feature in both systems.

On the other hand, the parallels between the theology of the _Pistis

Sophia_ and that of Valentinus are even closer, and are too important to

be merely accidental. The complete identification of Jesus with the

First Mystery strongly recalls the statement of Valentinus, rather

slurred over by the Fathers, that Jesus was Himself the Joint Fruit or

summary of the perfections of the whole Pleroma or Godhead, and is a

much more Christian conception than that of the earlier Ophites as to

His nature[544]. So, too, the curious theory that each of the lower

worlds has its own “saviour” finds expression in both systems, as does

the idea that Jesus received something from all the worlds through which

He passed on His way to earth. One may even find a vivid reminiscence of

the Valentinian nomenclature in the name of Pistis Sophia herself, which

combines the names of the feminine members of the first and last

syzygies of the Valentinian Dodecad[545], Pistis there being the spouse

of Paracletus or the Legate, and Sophia that of Theletus or the Beloved,

while the cause of her fall in the present book is the same as that

assigned in the system of Valentinus. Hence it may appear that the

author of the _Pistis Sophia_, whoever he may have been, was well

acquainted with the Ophite and Valentinian theology, and that he

continued it with modifications of his own after the innovating habit

current among the Gnostics and noticed by Tertullian.

In the cosmology of the _Pistis Sophia_, again, the preference given to

Valentinian rather than to the older Ophitic views is clearly marked.

The cause of the descent of the light into matter in the first instance

is no accident as with the Ophites, but is part of the large scheme for

the evolution or, as the author calls it, the “emanation” of the

universe which was devised and watched over in its smallest details by

the First Mystery[546]. Whether the author accepted the wild story

attributed to Valentinus by Irenaeus concerning the Fall of Sophia and

her Ectroma, it is impossible to say, because, as we have seen, he omits

all detailed description of the way in which the two higher worlds which

we have called the heavens of the Ineffable One and the world of the

First Mystery came into being[547]. But it is plain that both must have

been made by or rather through Jesus, because it is stated in the

mysterious five words written on the vesture of Jesus that it is through

the First Mystery that all things exist, and that it was from him that

all the emanations flowed forth[548]. As the _Pistis Sophia_ also says

that Jesus is Himself the First Mystery, this corresponds to the opening

words of St John’s Gospel, that “by Him all things were made[549].”

Hence the author of the _Pistis Sophia_, if confronted with the story of

the Ectroma, would doubtless have replied that this was merely a myth

designed to teach the danger for the uninstructed of acting on one’s own

initiative instead of waiting for the commands of God, and that in his

book he had told the same story in a slightly different way. This seems

to be the only construction to be placed on the trials of Pistis Sophia

herself, since her desire for light seems not to have been looked upon

as in itself sinful, and the real cause of her downfall was the

mistaking the light of Jaldabaoth for that of the Treasure-house. But

her descent into Chaos, unlike the Fall of her prototype, apparently had

nothing to do with the creation of the universe and its inhabitants,

which in the _Pistis Sophia_ seems to have taken place before the story

opens. If they were supposed by the author to have originated in the

passions of Sophia Without, as Hippolytus tells us Valentinus

taught[550], they were none the less the direct work of Jesus, and the

statement in Hippolytus, that in the Valentinian teaching Jesus made out

of the supplication of Sophia Without a path of repentance, finds a sort

of echo in the _Pistis Sophia_, where it is the “Metanoiae” or hymns of

penitence many times repeated of Pistis Sophia, her antitype or copy,

which bring Jesus to her succour. A further parallel may be found in

Hippolytus’ other statement from Valentinus that Jesus gave this

“supplication” power over the psychic substance which is called the

Demiurge[551]. In the _Pistis Sophia_, the heroine defeats the Authades

with the assistance of Jesus; and there does not seem much doubt that

Pistis Sophia is eventually to receive her adversary the Authades’

place, an event which is foreshadowed by the quotation of the text “His

bishopric let another take” in one of her penitential psalms[552]. It

would also appear that Adamas, the wicked king of the Twelve Aeons, may

be the Adversary or Diabolos described by the Valentinians[553] as the

cosmocrator or ruler of this world, his rule being exercised in the

_Pistis Sophia_ through his servants, the Archons of “Heimarmene and the

Sphere.” The epithet of Adamas or ἀδαμαστὸς given in classical

literature to Hades as the Lord of Hell would seem appropriate enough in

his case. This would only leave Beelzebub, prince of the demons,

unaccounted for; but the author does not here give any detailed

description of Chaos which may be supposed to be his seat. Although the

omission was, as we shall see, amply repaired in other documents put

forth by the sect, it may be here explained by the conviction of the

nearness of the Parusia or Second Advent which marks the _Pistis

Sophia_[554]. On the fulfilment of this hope, the Cosmos was, as we are

informed, to be “caught up,” and all matter to be destroyed[555]. What

need then to elaborate the description of its most malignant ministers?

The joys of the elect in the world to come, on the contrary, receive the

fullest treatment. In the “completion of the Aeon, when the number of

the assembly of perfect souls is made up[556],” or in other words when

all pneumatic or spiritual men have laid aside their material bodies,

they will ascend through all the firmaments and places of the lesser

powers until they come to the last Parastates, where they are to reign

with Jesus over all the worlds below it[557]. This is the place from

which the power, which the Great Light, the legate of the Ineffable One,

took from the First Precept and passed into the Kerasmos or Confusion,

originated; and it was this world, or rather its ruler, who arranged Jeû

and the other Powers of the Right Hand in their Places and thus set

going the whole machinery of salvation. Its “light” or glory is said to

be so tremendous that it can be compared to nothing in this world, and

here Jesus will reign with the disciples for 1000 “years of light” which

are equal to 365,000 of our years[558]. Here the thrones of the twelve

“disciples” (μαθηταί) will depend on His[559], “but Mary Magdalene and

John the Virgin shall be higher than all the disciples[560].” In the

midst of these beatitudes they will apparently receive further

instruction or further mysteries, the effect of which will be that they

will at the conclusion of the Millennium be united with Jesus in so

close a union that, as it is expressly said, they will become one with

Him, and finally they will become members of the Godhead and, as it

were, “the last limb of the Ineffable One[561].” In the meantime they

will be at liberty to visit any of the worlds below them. All those who

have received lesser mysteries,—that is to say, who have received a

lesser degree of instruction and have not become wholly pneumatic or

spiritual—will after death in this world go to the heaven of which they

have received the mystery, or, in cases where their instruction has only

just begun, be brought before the Virgin of Light, who will cause their

souls to be sent back to earth in “righteous” bodies, which will of

themselves seek after the mysteries, and, having obtained them, will, if

time be allowed, achieve a more or less perfect salvation. Here, again,

we meet with a close resemblance to the system of those later Ophites

who possessed the diagram described by Origen; for Jesus tells His

disciples that those who have only taken these lower mysteries will have

to exhibit a seal or token (σύμβολον) and to make an “announcement”

(ἀπόφασις) and a defence (ἀπολογία) in the different regions through

which they pass after death[562]. No such requirements, He says, will be

made from those who have received the higher mysteries, whose souls on

leaving the body will become great streams of light, which will pass

through all the lower places “during the time that a man can shoot an

arrow,” the powers therein falling back terror-stricken from its light

until the soul arrives at its appointed place. As, therefore, these

seals and announcements and defences will be of no use to the disciples,

the Jesus of the _Pistis Sophia_ declares that He will not describe them

in detail, they having been already set out in “the two great Books of

Jeû[563].”

What now are these “mysteries” which have so tremendous an effect on

their recipient as actually to unite him with the Deity after death? The

Greek word μυστήριον, which is that used in the Coptic MS., does not

seem to mean etymologically more than _a secret_, in which sense it was

applied to the ceremonies or secret dramas exhibited, as has been said,

at Eleusis and elsewhere, and later, to the Christian Eucharist[564]. In

the early part of the _Pistis Sophia_ it is the word used to denote the

First Mystery or first and greatest emanation of God, who is withdrawn

from human contemplation and, as it were, concealed behind a veil

impenetrable by the senses of man. But in the part of the book with

which we are now dealing it seems to refer not to hidden persons, but to

secret things. These things seem to fall into two categories, one of

which is spoken of as the Mystery of the Ineffable One, and the other as

the Mysteries of the First Mystery. The Mystery of the Ineffable One is

said to be one, but, with the provoking arithmetic peculiar to the book,

it is immediately added that it “makes” three mysteries and also another

five, while it is still one[565]. The Mysteries of the First Mystery on

the other hand are said to be twelve in number, and these figures may

possibly cover some allusion to the Ogdoad and the Dodecad of

Valentinus[566]. It is also fairly clear that each of these Twelve

Mysteries of the First Mystery must be some kind of ceremony, and a

ceremony which can be performed without much preparation or many

participants. This we may deduce from the following description of the

merits of one of them:

“For the second mystery of the First Mystery, if it is duly

accomplished in all its forms, and the man who accomplishes it shall

speak the mystery over the head of a man on the point of going forth

from the body, so that he throws it into his two ears:—even when the

man who is going forth from the body shall have received it

aforetime, and is a partaker of the word of Truth[567],—verily, I

say unto you that when that man shall go forth from the body of

matter, his soul will make a great flash of light, and will pass

through every Place until it come into the kingdom of that mystery.

“But and if that man has not [aforetime] received that mystery, and

is not a partaker of the word of Truth,—verily I say unto you that

man when he shall go forth from the body shall not be judged in any

Place whatever, nor shall he be tormented in any Place whatever, and

no fire shall touch him on account of that great mystery of the

Ineffable One which is in him; and all shall make haste to pass him

from one hand to the other, and to guide him into every Place and

every order, until they shall lead him before the Virgin of Light,

all the Places being filled with fear before the sign of the mystery

of the kingdom of that Ineffable One which shall be with him.

“And the Virgin of Light shall wonder and she shall try him, but he

will not be led towards the light until he shall have accomplished

all the service of the light of that mystery, that is to say, the

purifications of the renunciation of the world and all the matter

that is therein[568]. But the Virgin of Light shall seal that soul

with the excellent seal which is this XXXX[569], and she shall have

it cast in the same month in which it went forth from the body of

matter into a righteous body which will find the God of Truth and

the excellent mysteries in order that it may receive them by

inheritance and also the light for eternity. Which is the gift of

the second mystery of the First Mystery of that Ineffable One[570].”

The only ceremony to which such grace as is here set forth was likely to

be attributed by any Christian in the early age of the Church was that

of Baptism. It was called by writers like Gregory of Nazianza and

Chrysostom a μυστήριον[571]; while we hear as early as St Paul’s time of

“those who are baptized over [or on behalf of] the dead” (βαπτιξόμενοι

ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν)[572], the theory being, according to Döllinger, that

those who had wished during their lives to receive baptism but had not

done so, could thus obtain the benefit of the prayers of the Church,

which could not be offered for an unbaptized person[573]. So much was

this the case with some sects, that it was an offence charged by writers

like Tertullian against the Valentinians that they were in the habit of

delaying baptism as long as possible and even of putting it off till

they were about to die[574], as in the case in the text. Baptism, too,

was spoken of in sub-Apostolic times as the “seal” (σφραγίς)[575], or

impress, which may be that which the soul has to exhibit, both in the

Ophite system and in that of the _Pistis Sophia_, to the rulers of the

next world. In any event, the rite was looked upon by Catholic and

heretic alike as an initiation or commencement of the process by which

man was united with Christ. The other eleven “mysteries of the First

Mystery” are not specifically described in the _Pistis Sophia_; but it

is said that the receiving of any one of them will free its recipient’s

soul from all necessity to show seals or defences to the lesser powers

and will exalt him after his death to the rank of a king in the kingdom

of light, although it will not make him equal to those who have received

the mystery of the Ineffable One[576]. It therefore seems probable that

these “twelve mysteries of the First Mystery” all refer to the rite of

baptism, and are called twelve instead of one only to accord with some

trifling juggling with words and letters such as was common with the

followers of Valentinus[577]. That baptism was held in the sub-Apostolic

age to be, in the words of Döllinger, “not a mere sign, pledge, or

symbol of grace, but an actual communication of it wrought by the risen

and glorified Christ on the men He would convert and sanctify, and a

bond to unite the body of the Church with its Head[578],” will perhaps

be admitted. According to the same author, St Paul teaches that “by

Baptism man is incorporated with Christ, and puts on Christ, so that the

sacramental washing does away with all natural distinctions or

race;—Greek and Jew, slave and free, men and women, are one in Christ,

members of His body, children of God and of the seed of Abraham[579].”

He tells us also that the same Apostle “not only divides man into body

and spirit, but distinguishes in the bodily nature, the gross, visible,

bodily frame, and a hidden, inner, ‘spiritual’ body not subject to

limits of space or cognizable by the senses; this last, which shall

hereafter be raised, is alone fit for and capable of organic union with

the glorified body of Christ, of substantial incorporation with

it[580].” If Döllinger in the XIXth century could thus interpret St

Paul’s words, is it extraordinary that the author of the _Pistis Sophia_

should put the same construction on similar statements some sixteen

centuries earlier? So the late Dr Hatch, writing of baptism in this

connection, says: “The expressions which the more literary ages have

tended to construe metaphorically were taken literally. It was a real

washing away of sins; it was a real birth into a new life; it was a real

adoption into a divine sonship[581].”

If this be so, it seems to follow that the Mystery of the Ineffable One

must be the other and the greatest of the Christian sacraments. Jesus

tells His disciples that it is the “One and unique word,” and that the

soul of one who has received it “after going forth from the body of

matter of the Archons” will become “a great flood of light” and will fly

into the height, no power being able to restrain it, nor even to know

whither it goes. He continues:

“It shall pass through all the Places of the Archons and all the

Places of the emanations of light, nor shall it make any

announcement nor defence nor give in any symbol; for no Power of the

Archons nor of the emanations of light can draw nigh to that soul.

But all the Places of the Archons and of the emanations of light

shall sing praises, being filled with fear at the flood of light

which clothes that soul, until it shall have passed through them

all, and have come into the Place of the inheritance of the mystery

which it has received, which is the mystery of the sole Ineffable

One, and shall have become united with his members[582].”

He goes on to explain that the recipient of this mystery shall be higher

than angels, archangels, and than even all the Powers of the

Treasure-house of Light and those which are below it:

“He is a man in the Cosmos; but he is a king in the light. He is a

man in the Cosmos, but he is not of the Cosmos, and verily I say

unto you, that man is myself and I am that man.”

“And, in the dissolution of the Cosmos, when the universe shall be

caught up, and when the number of perfect souls shall be caught up,

and when I am become king in the middle of the last Parastates, and

when I am king over all the emanations of light, and over the Seven

Amen, and the Five Trees, and the Three Amen, and the Nine Guards,

and over the Boy of a Boy, that is to say the Twin Saviours, and

when I am king over the Twelve Saviours and all the numbers of

perfect souls who have received the mystery of light, then all the

men who have received the mystery of that Ineffable One shall be

kings with me, and shall sit on my right hand and on my left in my

kingdom. Verily I say unto you, Those men are I and I am those men.

Wherefore I said unto you aforetime: You shall sit upon thrones on

my right hand and on my left in my kingdom and shall reign with me.

Wherefore I have not spared myself, nor have I been ashamed to call

you my brethren and my companions, seeing that you will be

fellow-kings with me in my kingdom. These things, therefore, I said

unto you, knowing that I should give unto you the mystery of that

Ineffable One, and that mystery is I and I am that mystery[583].”

That this is the supreme revelation up to which the author of the

_Pistis Sophia_ has been leading all through the book, there can hardly

be any doubt. Its position shortly before the close of the book[584],

the rhapsodic and almost rhythmical phrases with which the approach to

it is obscured rather than guarded, and the way in which directly the

revelation is made, the author falls off into merely pastoral matters

relating to the lesser mysteries, all show that the author has here

reached his climax. But does this revelation mean anything else than

that Jesus is Himself the victim which is to be received in the

Sacrament or μυστήριον of the Altar? That the Christians of the first

centuries really thought that in the Eucharist they united themselves to

Christ by receiving His Body and Blood there can be no question, and the

dogma can have come as no novelty to those who, like the Ophites, had

combined with Christianity the ideas which we have seen current among

the Orphics as to the sacramental efficacy of the homophagous feast and

the eating of the quivering flesh of the sacrifice which represented

Dionysos. Döllinger gives the views of the primitive Church concisely

when he says it is “because we all eat of one Eucharistic bread, and so

receive the Lord’s body, that we all become one body, or as St Paul

says, we become members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.”

“We are nourished by communion,” he continues, “with the substance of

His flesh and blood, and so bound to the unity of His body, the Church;

and thus what was begun in Baptism is continued and perfected in the

Eucharist[585].” Thus, Justin Martyr, who lived in the reign of

Antoninus Pius, says “the food which is blessed by the prayer of His

word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished,

is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh[586].” That the

same idea was realized by the heretics may be gathered from what has

been said above as to the wonder-working celebration of the Eucharist by

Marcus, when the wine was made to change visibly into blood before the

eyes of the recipient[587].

It is plain also that the _Pistis Sophia_ does not look upon this

perfect union as within the reach of all. Basilides, the first of the

Egyptian Gnostics, had said that not one in a thousand or two in ten

thousand were fit to be admitted to the higher mysteries, and the same

phrase is repeated by Jesus Himself in one of the later documents of the

MS. of which the _Pistis Sophia_ forms part[588]. Those who were worthy

of admission to the mysteries of the Ineffable One and of the First

Mystery were the pneumatics or spiritual men predestined to them from

before their birth. For the others, the psychic or animal men, there

were the mysteries “of the light,” which are, so to speak, the first

step on the ladder of salvation[589]. These are nowhere described in the

_Pistis Sophia_ or first document of the book, the hearer being therein

always referred for their details to the two great Books of Jeû

mentioned above, “which Enoch wrote when I (_i.e._ Jesus) spoke with him

from the tree of knowledge and from the tree of life, which were in the

Paradise of Adam[590].” It is here expressly said that Jesus’ own

disciples have no need of them; but their effect is described as

purifying the body of matter, and transforming their recipient into

“light” of exceeding purity. On the death of one who has taken them all,

his soul traverses the different heavens repeating the passwords, giving

in the defences, and exhibiting the symbols peculiar to each mystery

until it reaches the abode assigned to its particular degree of

spiritual illumination. These mysteries of the light are open to the

whole world and there is some reason for thinking they are the

sacraments of the Catholic Church, the members of which body, Irenaeus

says, the “heretics” (Qy the Valentinians?) held not to be saved but to

be only capable of salvation[591]. If the recipient of these lesser

mysteries dies before complete initiation, he has to undergo a long and

painful series of reincarnations, his soul being sent back into the

Sphere of Destiny and eventually into this world by the Virgin of Light,

who will, however, take care that it is placed in a “righteous” body

which shall strive after the mysteries until it finds them. But the way

to these lower mysteries is the complete renunciation of this world. Man

naturally and normally is entirely hylic or material, being, as Jesus

tells His disciples in the _Pistis Sophia_, “the very dregs of the

Treasure-house, of the Places of those on the Right Hand, in the Middle,

and on the Left Hand, and the dregs of the Unseen Ones and of the

Archons, and, in a word, the dregs of them all[592].” Hence it is only

by the cleansing grace of the mysteries that he can hope to escape the

fate which is coming upon the Kerasmos, and to obtain these, he must

avoid further pollution.

“Wherefore preach you to the whole race of men, saying: Slacken not

day and night until ye find the cleansing mysteries. Say unto them:

Renounce the world and all the matter that is therein; for whoso

buys and sells in the world and eats and drinks in its matter, and

lives in all its cares and all its conversations, takes unto himself

other matter as well as his own matter.... Wherefore I said unto you

aforetime: Renounce the whole world and all the matter that is

therein lest ye add other matter to your own matter. Wherefore

preach ye to the whole race of men ... cease not to seek day and

night and stay not your hand until ye find the cleansing mysteries

which will cleanse you so as to make you pure light, that ye may go

into the heights and inherit the light of my kingdom[593].”