RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Valentinus
of the first dyad the second caused the emanation of twelve eons. Thus there were, in all, twentyeight eons, the number of the days in the lunar month, a fact pointing to the Oriental origin of this form of the system. The twelfth and last of the eons of the second line was the female, ‘“‘ Wisdom,” who, seeking to imitate the mode of emanation employed by the Father, produced an abortion in the shape of formless matter. This produced horror and alarm among the eons or the pleroma, and the Father, in pity, sent them to aid. “ Mind” and “Truth ”’ emanated Christ and the Holy Ghost, and this new syzygy separated the abortion of Wisdom from the eons, thus reraoving the cause of alarm. The Father likewise emanated an eon, “ Cross,’’ which marks the limit of the eons (also called ‘‘ Boundary ” or “ Participator”’), beyond whom is the octad, and ‘‘ Wisdom ”’ outside the pleroma, whom Christ made a perfect eon. The thirty eons now determined on an emanation of a common progeny of the pleroma to present to the Father, and the result was Jesus. Lower Wisdom wistfully longed for her authors, Christ and the Holy Ghost. The eons found Jesus to be compassionate, who entered into a syzygy with lower ** Wisdom,” and relieved her of her sufferings by converting these into hypostases. From fear, the “* psychic being,’ came the demiurge; from sorrow came matter; from the disorder of ignorance the demons; and from need sprang repentance and the ascent of the soul. The soul belongs to the middle sphere, under the ogdoad, the heavenly Jerusalem, and above matter. The souls come from the demiurge, who gave them bodies of demonic matter, even as he created the world. The law and the prophets likewise came from him. All the psychic have a veil upon their hearts which blinds them to the higher world of spirits; and when this veil was to be removed, the historic Jesus was born of the Virgin by the lower wisdom entering and the demiurge overshadowing her. He cures the sufferings of souls, just as Christ healed those of lower wisdom. A similar description is given by Clement of Alexandria (‘‘ Extracts from Theodotus,” xxix.—xlii.). The Valentinian school later fell into an Oriental and an Italian branch; to the former belonged Axionicus and Bardesanes (q.v.), and to the latter Ptolemy and Heracleon. The Occidental division was so wide-spread in Italy and southern Gaul that Irenzeus first planned his Adversus Hereses against the Valentinians alone. The Oriental Valentinians were found especially in Egypt and Syria. By the second half of the fourth century the sect seems to have been restricted to Egypt, Manicheism elsewhere absorbing its remnants.
Of the chief followers of Valentinus, Irenzeus mentions Secundus (Her., I., xi. 2). Philastrius (Her., xl.) ascribes to him a docetic Christology which his source, the Syntagma of Hippolytus, had assigned to the Valentinians. According to Irenzeus,
Secundus divided the first ogdoad into
3. Secundus; a male and a female tetrad, the former Ptolemy. being light and the latter darkness; and he did not reckon the fallen power
among the thirty eons but among their fruits, doubtless the higher wisdom. Ptolemy, whose career is
Valentinus
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
utterly unknown, was still alive when Irenzeus wrote against the Gnosties (c. 180). The only extant fragment of his writings, except for his valuable epistle to Flora (Epiphanius, Her., xxxiii. 5 sqq.), is a citation from an exegetical work in Irenzeus (I., viii. 5; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 328-329). The epistle to Flora is a reply to a question concerning the origin of the Old-Testament law; and is distinguished for its calm, clear method of proof on a religious basis, as well as a simple theology instead of the abstruse series of eons. While the Church taught that the law came from God the Father and others maintained it to be the work of the devil, Ptolemy held it to be partly from God, partly from Moses, and partly from the Jewish elders. The portion derived from God was subdivided into (1) the pure legislation unmixed with evil and fulfilled by the Savior; (2) the law mixed with evil, as the law of retaliation, destroyed by the Savior; and (3) the typical or symbolical, as the laws on the Sabbath, circumcision, feasts, and fasts, whose literal meaning the Savior abrogated in favor of a spiritual signification. The lawgiver can not be the perfect highest God, nor the devil; but the demiurge. The ultimate reality is the unbegotten unchangeable good principle, essentially immortality and light; simple, absolute, the perfect God, whom the Savior called his Father. Of the two potencies produced by him, the demiurge is also God, but neither good nor evil, but merely just (hating evil). His righteousness is not perfect, yet he is the image of the perfect God. He created the world in which he exercises his providence, and he gave the law, so far as it was not the work of man. The second potency is the devil, who also is ‘‘ God,” but not to be identified with the demiurge. He is the adversary who creates destruction; his sphere is unrighteousness; his nature darkness and destruction, material and multiform. The problem how the supreme God, capable by his nature to produce only what is like himself, could have created such imperfect beings is left unanswered, partly on account of a breach in the text. Possibly this was conceived as a procession of eons, by self-depotentiation (Harnack). As to soteriology, redemption is given in the Savior, who alone knows the ‘“‘ Father of all.”” His function was to reveal the Father to man, and through this alone has he enabled man to grasp the mystery of the universe. The Christological formula, ‘‘ of the same substance with the Father,” which triumphed at Nicwa, owes its origin to the Gnostic Ptolemy. Ireneus, discussing this school at great length (Her., I., i—viii.; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 316-339), used certain ‘‘ memoirs,’ whether by Ptolemy or by one of his pupils is unclear. In the upper world, or pleroma, rule thirty eons. At their head is the source of all being (‘‘ Primal Beginning,” ‘‘ Primal Father,” ‘‘ Abyss’), in whom “ Consciousness ”’ (also called ‘‘ Grace ” and ‘‘ Silence ’’) is immanent. Like a seed he places in ‘‘ Silence” the concept of causing a beginning of the universe to appear, whereupon she bears ‘‘ Mind” (or the “‘ Only Begotten,” ‘‘ Father,” ‘“‘ Beginning of All’’), together with “ Truth.” These four—‘‘ Abyss” and “ Silence,” ‘‘ Mind” and ‘ Truth”’—form the first tetrad, the source of the universe. The ‘‘ Only Be-
gotten ”’ emanates as the beginning of the pleroma “ Logos”’ and “ Life,” and they, in their turn, “Man” and ‘“ Church.” This is the first ogdoad, which may also be regarded as a tetrad since the pairs may be combined as androgynous. Ten further eons, or five syzygies, emanated from “* Logos” and “ Life,” and twelve from ‘“‘ Man” and “ Church,” the last being ‘‘ Wisdom.’ The first emanation, the ‘‘ @nly Begotten,” alone was able to comprehend the ‘“ Primal Father,”’ who was to impart this to the other eons; but ‘‘ Wisdom,” seized by a passionate desire to comprehend the ‘“* Father,’ would have been absorbed by his sweetness had she not been checked by ‘‘ Boundary,” which watches over all outside the indescribable magnitude of God. To prevent a repetition of this, ‘“* Only Begotten ”’ emanated another syzygy, Christ and the Holy Ghost, who complete the number of the eons. In thankfulness for the instruction given them by this syzygy, the eons resolved to collect their best, and thus arose Jesus (‘‘ Savior,”’ ‘‘Christ,”’ IOP OS amaliner lem). The drama of the fall opens with ‘‘ Thought ” ( Enthymésis), which, as the determination to penetrate the depths of the Father, parted 4. The Fall from ‘‘ Wisdom ” and is now hypostaand Re- tized. This is also called ’Achaméth demption (Hebr. abstract plural, hokhmoth, According ‘‘ wisdom ’”’), and had sunk with the to Ptolemy. “‘ passion ”’ she had evoked in “* Wisdom,’”’ from the pleroma into the “void,” without form or figure, like an untimely birth. Christ took pity on her and gave her a substantial, although not an intellectual form. She, retaining an “‘ odor of immortality,” still longs for the pleroma and the light of ‘‘ Logos,’ which she strains to reach, only to be checked by ‘‘ Boundary,” throwing her into passion, fear, and ignorance. Nevertheless, from her desire toward her creator originate the orderly arrangement of the world, and the souls; while from the aggregate of passions came the substance of matter. From the soul-material ’Achaméth forms the demiurge, who, in virtue of ’enthymésis, creates likenesses of the eons. Thus arise seven heavens or angels, over whom is the demiurge, and above him ’Achamath, thus affording a copy of the heavenly ogdoad. From the sorrow of ’Achaméth, moreover, comes evil which becomes the devil, or ‘‘ world-ruler,” and his evil angels, the demons. Man comes from the demiurge, being formed first of matter and then receiving his psychic element from the creator, finally acquiring his ‘‘ fleshly mantle.” Unknown to the demiurge, ’Achamaoth placed the pneumatic seed in man, so that he constitutes a trichotomy, as follows: matter, which is transitory; the psychic, endowed with free will; and the pneumatic, the salt and light of the world. No longer combined in one person, these three natures result in three classes of men: the pneumatics; who are worthy of perfection and may share in the pleroma; the psychic or animal, who are mentally swayed between the good and the evil, and if they incline toward the former will attain to the intermediate place; and the material, who perish. Only the psychie need redemption, which is fulfilled by Christ. According
to some, he had received his material and psychic side from the demiurge, and his pneumatic elements from ’Achamoéth; and at his baptism the Savior, descending from the pleroma, entered him so that he became a copy of the original tetrad. The Church, primarily an organization of psychics, is ruled by the demiurge, hence in it there is no perfect gnosis. Perfection will come when all pneumatic mankind shall possess perfect knowledge of God and ’Achamoth, who, accompanied by the pneumatics as angels of light, shall then enter the pleroma as the bride of the Savior. The demiurge will then go to the intermediate place hitherto occupied by ’Achamdéth, where the psychics will find rest, while the material world will be destroyed by fire.
The Valentinian of whose writings larger fragments have been preserved (through Origen) than of any of his fellows is Heracleon, of whose life and fortunes almost nothing is known, although Clement of Alexandria terms him the most distinguished of the Valentinian school (Strom., IV., ix. 71). He evidently flourished about 200, possibly at Rome, as is apparent from certain Latinisms in his works; and: Hippolytus makes him the leader of the Italian Valentinians. Origen had “notes” by him in which passages of the Gospel of John were briefly explained. According to Heracleon, God, as a pure and invisible spirit, can be honored only spiritually. His counterpart is the material, destructive, demonic principle that has only desires, not will. Between the two spheres is the soul, which is not immortal, but is capable of salvation. It comes from the demiurge, and is distinct from the pneumatic seed. The ‘‘ pneumatics,” essentially akin to God, are the “ elect,’ led by the Logos to the highest wisdom, and destined to salvation. The psychics can perceive only through the senses, and may be convinced only by miracle, and can attain no more than right faith; and material men, or hylics, have lost their relation with God. The “ Savior,” the image of the pleromatic Christ, originated all the cosmos (not the eons). He proceeded from the ‘“ majesty’ and became incarnate, his superiority being proclaimed by John the Baptist, the representative of the demiurge. He advanced from the uttermost ends of hylic world, where he neither wrought nor spoke, to the psychic realm, where, through the power of the Holy Ghost, he banished evil and put it to flight by the cross. The demiurge is a subordinate prince ruling over the comparatively small domain of the middle, or psychic, realm. To this comes the Savior, who forgives those who live in ignorance and sin contrary to their true nature, while those who will not thus be led to fellowship with God fall under the judgment of the demiurge, or executioner. The souls form syzygies, each with its reaping angel, the end in view being the union of all ‘* pneumatic natures ”’ with the ‘‘ pneumatic Church,” which constitutes a syzygy with the Savior. Judaism, like the world, was the work of the demiurge, as was the law, which results in death as annihilation for sin. The fragments of Heracleon are especially important as showing how small a factor the speculation concerning eons practically was, though such was tacitly