Early Church Fathers
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26 The Greek text inserts en, one, before "Holy Spirit."
27 The reading is here very doubtful. We have followed the text of Grabe (approved by Harvey), ec agwnoj sumphcij.
28 These are all names of the same person: see above, ii. 4. Hence some have proposed the reading ecaiwnioj instead of ec agwnoj, alluding to the sixfold appellation of the Aeon Horos.
29 Billius renders, "from the repentance of the Father," but the above seems preferable.
30 Harvey remarks, "Even in their Christology the Valentinians must have their part and counterpart."
31 Or, "to all the generations of the ages of the age." See Eph. iii. 21. The apostle, of course, simply uses these words as a strong expression to denote "for ever."
32 Literally, "at the thanksgiving," or "eucharist." Massuet, the Benedictine editor, refers this to the Lord's Supper, and hence concludes that some of the ancient liturgies still extant must even then have been in use. Harvey and others, however, deny that there is any necessity for supposing the Holy Eucharist to be referred to; the ancient Latin version translates in the plural, "in gratiarum actionibus."
35 This opinion is in positive contradiction to the forty days mentioned by St. Luke (Acts i. 3). But the Valentinians seem to have followed a spurious writing of their own called "The Gospel of Truth." See iii. 11, 8.
36 The numeral value of Iota in Greek is ten, and of Eta, eight.
39 The Latin reads "filii," which we have followed. Reference is made in this word to Nous, who was, as we have already seen, also called Son, and who interested himself in the recovery of Sophia. Aletheia was his consort, and was typified by the hem of the Saviour's garment.
40 Her individuality (morfh) would have been lost, while her substance (ou0si/a) would have survived in the common essence of the Aeons.
41 That is, the "second Christ" referred to above, sec. 1. [It is much to be wished that this second were always distinguished by the untranslated name Soter.]
43 Not as being born of it, but as fecundating it, and so producing a manifold offspring. See below.
48 Luke xiv. 27. It will be observed that the quotations of Scripture made by Irenaeus often vary somewhat from the received text. This may be due to various reasons-his quoting from memory; his giving the texts in the form in which they were quoted by the heretics; or, as Harvey conjectures, from his having been more familiar with a Syriac version of the New Testament than with the Greek original.
52 Hence Stauros was called ty the agricultural name Carpistes, as separating what was gross and material from the spiritual and heavenly.
54 Gal. vi. 14. The words en mhdeni do not occur in the Greek text.
55 Billius renders, "of their opinion."
56 The punctuation and rendering are here slightly doubtful.
57 This term, though Tertullian declares himself to have been ignorant of its derivation, was evidently formed from the Hebrew word hmbx
-chockmah, wisdom.
58 The reader will observe that light and fulness are the exact correlatives of the darkness and vacuity which have just been mentioned.
59 As above stated (ii. 3), the Gnostics held that form and figure were due to the male, substance to the female parent.
60 The Valentinian Stauros was the boundary fence of the Pleroma beyond which Christ extended himself to assist the enthymesis of Sophia.
61 The peculiar gnosis which Nous received from his father, and communicated to the other Aeons.
62 Probably corresponding to the Hebrew hwh
, Jehovah.
63 This sentence is very elliptical in the original, but the sense is as given above. Sophia fell from Gnosis by degradation; Achamoth never possessed this knowledge, her nature being from the first opposed to it.
64 "The Demiurge derived from Enthymesis an animal, and not a spiritual nature."-Harvey.
66 "Jesus, or Soter, was also called the Paraclete in the sense of Advocate, or one acting as the representative of others."-Harvey.
67 Both the Father and the other Aeons constituting Soter an impersonation of the entire Pleroma.
69 That is, as in the case of her mother Sophia, who is sometimes called "the Sophia above," Achamothe being "the Sophia below," or "the second Sophia."
70 Thus Harvey renders aswmaton ulhn: so Baur, Chr. Gnos., as quoted by Stieren. Billius proposes to read enswmaton, corporeal.
71 Though not actually, for that was the work of the Demiurge. See next chapter.
72 "In order that," says Grabe, "this formation might not be merely according to essence, but also according to knowledge, as the formation of the mother Achamoth was characterized above."
73 Metropator, as proceeding only from his mother Achamoth: Apator, as having no male progenitor.
74 Harvey remarks, "The Valentinian Saviour being an aggregation of all the aeonic perfections, the images of them were reproduced by the spiritual conception of Achamoth beholding the glory of Swthr. The reader will not fail to observe that every successive development is the reflex of a more divine antecedent."
75 The relation indicated seems to be as follows: Achamoth, after being formed "according to knowledge," was outside of the Pleroma as the image of Propator, the Demiurge was as Nous, and the mundane angels which he formed corresponded to the other Aeons of the Pleroma.
76 "Achamoth by these names must be understood to have an intermediate position between the divine prototypal idea and creation: she was the reflex of the one, and therefore masculo-feminine; she was the pattern to be realized in the latter, and therefore was named Earth and Jerusalem."-Harvey.
77 But after the consummation here referred to, Achamoth regained the Pleroma: see below, chap. vii. 1.
79 An account is here given of the infusion of a spiritual principle into mankind. The Demiurge himself could give no more than the animal soul; but, unwittingly to himself, he was made the instrument of conveying that spiritual essence from Achamoth, which had grown up within her from the contemplation of those angels who accompanied the Saviour.
81 "The doctrine of Valentinus, therefore," says Harvey, "as regards the human nature of Christ, was essentially Docetic. His body was animal, but not material, and only visible and tangible as having been formed kat oikonomian and kateskeuasmenon arrhtw texnh."
82 [That is, carnal; men of the carnal mind, psychic instead of pneumatic. Rom. viii. 6.]
83 On account of what they had received from Achamoth.
86 Comp. John xvii. 16. The Valentinians, while in the world, claimed to be not of the world, as animal men were.
87 Their spiritual substance was received from Achamoth; their animal souls were created by the Demiurge. These are now separated; the spirit enters the Pleroma, while the soul remains in heaven.
89 A Syriac fragment here reads, "He spake by the prophets through him."
90 "Thus," says Harvey,"we may trace back to the Gnostic period the Apollinarian error, closely allied to the Docetic, that the body of Christ was not derived from the blessed Virgin, but that it was of heavenly substance, and was only brought forth into the world through her instrumentality."
91 By thus extending himself through Stauros, who bounded the Pleroma, the Christ above became the type of the Christ below, who was extended upon the cross.
