5. Heracleon.
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Valentinus
presupposed. What is vital to Ptolemy and Heracleon is the ascent of the soul to the pleroma, and it is clear that their interest was primarily ethical and religious.
Marcus was apparently a contemporary of Irenzeus (1., xiii. 5; ANF, i. 335), and developed his activity in Asia Minor; though his pupils came to the West and spread his teachings as far as Gaul. Irenzeus used writings of Marcus, without mentioning their titles, and Clement of Alexandria seems to
have known and utilized some (Strom.,
6. Marcus. VI., xvi. 140-141). Irenzus likewise expressly states that the sect had a
number of apocryphal writings, which they fabricated themselves (I., xx. 1). Close similarity of the system of Marcus to that of the school will save a detailed analysis. Neopythagorean influence and the widely prevalent juggling with numbers and letters are prominent. More important are excerpts from the liturgy of Marcus, which give a glimpse into the sacramental doctrines of the sect (I., xxi.). According to them, baptism by water had only psychic power, the perfect capability of entering the pleroma requiring ‘‘ redemption,’ a fact too intangible to be described. Many of the sect were accustomed to construct a bridal chamber in which the mystic marriage of the soul took place. Others performed baptism with such phrases as: ‘‘ In the name of the unknowable Father of all, in Truth the mother of all, in him who descended on Jesus, in the union, redemption, and communion of the powers,” or the Aramaic: ‘‘in the name of ’Achamoéth, be immersed”’; again: “‘ The name hid from all divinity and dominion and truth, which Jesus the Nazarene put on in the zones of light, Christ the lord of him who liveth through the Holy Ghost, to angelic redemption.” After suitable responses, anointing with oil of balsam followed. Sometimes the immersion was omitted, and the candidate, with similar invocations, was simply anointed with water and oil together. Others still rejected all sacramental forms, holding it to be impious to attempt to represent the ineffable and inconcelvable. The gnosis was perfect salvation, which was restricted to the pneumatic man, and there was also a salvation of the dead. With proper invocations, the head of the deceased was anointed with water and oil, or simply with oil of balsam; so that the inner man, unseen by the demons, might arise and the soul pass to the demiurge. One elaborate mystical formula made progress possible through the realm of angels, and another through the realm of the demiurge; while another prayer was addressed to the higher wisdom, who withdrew the pneumatic man from the judge (the demiurge). The celebration of the Eucharist resolved itself into a magical jugglery. According to Ireneus, who may have given a one-sided, colored effect, when the mysiagogue pronounced the prayer of thanksgiving over the chalice of mixed wine, and extended the epiclesis, the ordinary wine changed to red. This was represented to mean that the ‘‘ higher Grace ”’ had dropped some of her blood into the chalice that the communicants should rejoice to partake of her. Again, Marcus gave the chalice to the assisting prophetess, who made the prayer of thanksgiving.
f
Valentinus Valerian
He himself took a larger cup, in which he poured the contents of the smaller. He then invoked Grace, whereupon the cup overflowed through the influx of Grace. Marcus felt himself to be a prophet and believed himself to be able to communicate his powers to others, the ritual being given by Irenzus (I., xiii. 3); and he likewise solicited the services of women of position and wealth as prophetesses, with high-sounding declamations. Despite the fantastic speculations of Marcus, his religious earnestness is unmistakable, and his prayers show that his central thought was to raise the inner man to the pleroma, not by mystic plunging into depths possible only to the pneumatic, but by turning away from the material and evil world.
The history of the Valentinian Colorbasus is wrapped in obscurity. In referring to him, Epiphanius (Her., xxxv.) merely repeats comments of Trenzeus on the school of Marcus without mentioning to what branch of the school his remarks apply; and Theodoret (H e@reticarum fabularum, i. 12) gives
an excerpt from the results of Hpi-
7. Color- phanius. Philaster (Her., xliii.) con-
basus. tents himself with saying that Colorbasus ‘‘ likewise declared that the life and generation of all men consist in letters and in the number of the elements and of the seven stars.” The source of all information on Colorbasus is apparently the problematical Her., I., xiv. 1, of Irenus, according to which Marcus declared himself to be “‘ the matrix and receptacle of the Silence of Colorbasus.”” This may have been a technical expression of the school which is not mentioned elsewhere. Attempts have been made to explain it as representing the Hebr. kol ’arba‘, or “‘ all four” (Heumann); or, kol ’arba‘, or ‘“ voice of four” (F. C. Baur), in allusion to the higher tetrad, without, however, any further support. That Colorbasus was the name of a historic personage is an unquestioned possibility; for the name Kolorbasios occurs elsewhere (A. Hilgenfeld).
With all its variations Valentinian Gnosticism is in great part founded on Platonism as understood by later generations. The infinite Spirit, to whose realm the spirit in man has an inalienable right, draws the spirits of men back to him, since their longing for the higher world has never been quenched, and their struggle for escape from the
terrestrial as from a prison has never
8. Sources ceased. The Eros of Plato finds its and counterpart in the ‘‘ Wisdom,” or Estimation. ’Achamdth, of Valentinus, while the eons are, in the last analysis, simply
the Platonic ideas. Pythagoreanism is present in the symbolism of numbers and antitheses; while Stoicism is represented in certain technical terms, as well as in the functions assigned to “ seed’ and ‘“‘ passion,’’ and in the concept of the cosmic conflagration. The religious side of the system was no less syncretistic than the philosophical, though as to its scope present results are inconclusive, and the sources have scarcely been touched. The pagan syncretism of the Semitic East, though not yet sounded, the Egyptian religion, the popular faiths of Greece and Rome, all contributed, yet at least some of the Valentinian leaders successfully with-