Against the Valentinians

The work “Against the Valentinians” (39 chapters) was written by Tertullian in 207-212. and directed against the Gnostic sect of Valentinus. It differs sharply from other polemical works of Tertullian in the sense that it is not an analysis, but only a complete ridicule of Valentinian teaching. In it, Tertullian almost literally reproduces the corresponding chapters of the essay. Irenaeus of Lyon "Against Heresies". The Valentinian system is a tragedy in two acts, the first of which takes place in the attic - in heaven, and consists in the marriages and births of the higher eons and the passionate attractions of the last of them, and the second takes place outside the Pleroma and consists in the formation of the world through the miscarriage of the Pleroma, in the creation of man and the final fate of the world. Finally, remarks are made about the contradictions in the Valentinian school. *The title of the work in Latin is Adversus Valentinianos. 1) The Valentians, a numerous sect among heretics, recruiting accomplices from apostates from the truth, willingly incline to fabulousness and thus do not surprise anyone. They care about nothing so much as to hide what they preach, if only a hidden teaching can be called preaching: The darkness with which they surround themselves is a precaution that clearly exposes them. They reveal their confusion when they want to support their imaginary religion. In a similar way, the silence that covers the Eleusinian sacraments, a kind of schism in Greek superstition itself, turns these sacraments themselves into shame and reproach. They prescribe strict tests, require a long wait to be initiated, impose a seal of silence on the lips, determine five years for the trial, in order to attract more respect to oneself by delaying knowledge of the matter, and to exalt the majesty of the sacraments by kindling desire. Then comes the duty of silence. They carefully try to preserve what they are too late to discover. But what do these sighs of candidates strive for, this seal of silence on their lips, this deity residing in the sanctuary? Towards the discovery of the emblem of human manhood. The allegorical interpretation, using the venerable name of nature, covers sacrilege under the image of a figure, and justifies itself from the reproach of lying by the adored ghost. This is exactly what the heretics with whom we are now dealing do. Covering their vain and shameful inventions with the sacred names and arguments of Religion, moreover, using the trinity of Divine persons for evil, and believing that many come from several Gods, the Valentinians instituted their own Eleusinian sacraments, and assure gullible pious people that they are sacred because of deep silence, although, however, there is nothing honorable in them except the obligation to remain silent. Ask them anything frankly: they will take on a stern look, wrinkle their foreheads, and exclaim: “Oh, depth!” Enter into a conversation with them: they will subtly and ambiguously begin to assert that their faith is common to everyone. If they notice that you have penetrated them, they will renounce everything. If you approach them with more persistence, they will pretend to be gullible simpletons. They do not reveal their secrets even to their students until they are sure of them. They have the art of persuading rather than teaching. But truth convinces by teaching; and does not teach by convincing. 2) That is why they usually reproach us for simplicity, as if it is no longer possible to be both simple and wise, and as if wisdom is alien to simplicity, while the Lord connects them together, saying: “be wise as a serpent, and your goals (simple) as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Therefore, if we are mad because we are simple, then our opponents must also be simple because they are wise. He who is not simple is wicked. He who is not wise is foolish. Meanwhile, if I had to make a choice, I would prefer a less important vice, because it is better to know little than to know too much, it is better to be deceived yourself than to deceive others. “Be wise about the Lord in goodness, and in simplicity of heart seek Him” (Wisdom Sol. 1:1), says Wisdom, but the wisdom is not Valentin’s, but Solomon’s. Secondly, true children testified with their blood their faith in Jesus Christ. People screaming: crucify him, crucify him! Without a doubt, they were not children, and they were not dumb, that is, they were not ordinary people. Yes, and the Apostle commands us to be children according to God, expressing himself this way: “Be childish in malice, but have perfect minds” (1 Corinthians 14:20). Thus it has been proven that straightforward wisdom comes from simplicity. In a word, the dove always serves as a prototype of Jesus Christ, and the snake (devil) appears only to tempt Him. Therefore, simplicity alone is able to recognize and declare God; and wisdom itself can easily persecute Him and betray Him. 3) Let the snake hide as best it can, let its turns and convolutions tire its wisdom, go deep into underground places, plunge into dark shelters, wrap itself in the numerous bends of its coils, never clearly showing itself, and not enduring either day or light. Our dove lives in the sanctuary of simplicity, always staying in an elevated place, and illuminating everyone with its light. The image of the Holy Spirit loves the radiance of the east, which is the image of Jesus Christ. Truth is not ashamed of anything, except when it is not revealed. And who, in fact, would be ashamed to hear and honor as God the one whom nature itself reveals to him, whose presence he feels every day in His deeds, whom he does not know only when he does not recognize Him as one, as he considers Him to be multiple, as he adores Him in His creatures? To reject many gods in order to introduce many other gods in their place, to turn believers from family power to unknown power, from visible domination to hidden dominion, means the same thing as weaponizing natural knowledge against faith. When asking about the source of such fables, don’t you think that you hear the stories of the nurse in your childhood about the black cat and so on? Anyone who has an understanding of faith, having heard about all the names of the Aeons (Valentinian gods), about all their marriages, births, deaths, incidents, the happiness and misfortune of their deity, so finely fragmented, will certainly not doubt to recognize all this as mere fables and for those endless genealogies (1 Tim. 1:4), which the spirit of the Apostle had already condemned before these heretical seeds began to appear. Thus, shunning simplicity and guided by imaginary wisdom, these people act justly when, giving birth to such fables with difficulty and indirectly defending them, they do not completely pass them on even to their own students, because they are either shameful when they are offered cunningly, or are contrary to human understanding, even if they were respectful. However simple we may be, we know everything. It is this first weapon that we will use in order to get down to business, first of all, to expose their conscience, and then to gain victory over them; for to discover what is hidden with such effort is the same as destroying it. 4) We also repeat that we fully know their origin. We know why we give them the name Valentinian, although they do not admit it. It is true that they have distanced themselves from their founder; but they did not destroy their origin from him, and if they accidentally changed something, then this very change serves as evidence against them. Valentine hoped to receive the Bishopric because he had talent and eloquence. Indignant that another, by right of martyrdom, was awarded this title, he brazenly broke away from the Church, which professes the true faith, and, following the example of people languishing with a thirst for revenge in order to acquire honors, he used all his strength to overthrow the truth. Having found the root of one ancient opinion, he paved the way for Kolarbaz. Then Ptolemy appeared, who, having designated the names and numbers of the Aeons, turned them into personal essences, but placed them outside of God, instead of Valentine including them in the essence of the deity under the name of sensations, inclinations and movements. Heraklion, Secundus and the sorcerer Mark, somewhat spread this teaching on their part. Theotim dealt especially with the ghosts of the law. Therefore, now there is almost no talk about Valentine. For all this, these heretics are called Valentinians, because their origins were traced back to the times of Valentinus. Only Aksionik in Antioch still maintains the memory of Valentinov in all the strictness of his rules. However, this heresy takes as many different forms as a dissolute woman usually changes her face and dress. And why not? Heretics find their spiritual seed in each of their brethren. Having invented any news, they immediately call revelation that which is only a guess, a sacred gift that is only a human invention, diversity that constitutes unity. That is why, not to mention their usual pretense, we see that most of them are divided among themselves. About well-known objects they will even tell you frankly: “This is not so; I understand it differently; I don’t accept this.” And indeed, the types of rules they establish are renewed by diversity, which often accepts even the embellishments of ignorance. 5) I intend to arm myself against the fundamental dogmas of the original teachers, and not against the hypocritical leaders of the disciples who wander according to their own will. Without thinking that anyone could reproach us for the willful invention of subjects that were expounded and refuted by holy and enlightened men, not only predecessors, but also contemporaries of the heresiarchs, which are: Justin, philosopher and martyr, Milziades, champion of the churches, Irenaeus, a learned follower of all such teachings, our Proculus, a virgin to a very old age, the honor and glory of the Christian eloquence. God would grant that I would be equal to them in relation to both other feats of faith and the work set before me. There is no doubt that if heresies did not exist, so those who refute them would have to be accused of inventing them: in that case, the Apostle who foretold them would have told a lie. But no! They exist, and they exist exactly in the forms they are presented. And who has so much idle time to indulge in inventions, having ready-made materials? 6) In order not to cloud my mind with strange, wonderful, ambiguous, willfully invented names, I must warn you in advance how I will use these names, intending in this article to deal only with the presentation, and not the refutation of this mysterious confusion. Some of these names, being borrowed from the Greek language, do not have the same meaning in any other language; others belong to a special genus; others, finally, are more common. Thus, we will borrow mostly Greek words and sometimes add some explanations to them, so that no one gets confused. This time I put aside any direct struggle, and will be content, as I already said, with just an exposition; however, where the recklessness of the teaching deserves censure, there I will not shy away from a superficial and quick review. Imagine, reader, that you are present at some skirmish before the battle. I'll outline the blows, but won't go too deep. If anything makes you laugh, it will be a sign that you do justice to such absurdities. Many of them do not deserve another refutation: any sensible answer could only give them more importance. Funny things naturally lead to vain concepts. But sometimes it is fitting for truth itself to laugh, because it is not alien to gaiety; It is fitting for her to joke about her enemies, because she is confident in her strength. You just have to avoid it so that her laughter does not arouse inappropriate slander in anyone. However, laughter, where it is decent, fulfills its duty. Let's get down to business. 7) The Latin poet Ennius was the first to say that the heavenly meals are limitless, either because of the enormity of the place where they are celebrated, or because he read in Homer about the festivities given there by Jupiter. But what is even more amazing is how many peaks upon peaks, elevations upon elevations, our heretics piled up, hung and fastened in the sky in order to form an abode for each of their gods. These meals, attributed by Ennius to our Creator, are arranged in small rooms, decorated with balconies floor by floor, and divided for each god by as many staircases as there have been heresies. The world has become a real merchant's office. Seeing so many thousands of steps in the sky, you would call all this a prosperous island of some kind. But where are they? This is unknown. This is where the god Valentinian lives, as if in an attic under the roof. In relation to his essence, they call him a perfect Aeon, and in relation to his person, Proarch, Archaeus or Bythos, attributing to him the last word which is not at all suitable for one who lives on high. They proclaim him to be beginningless, limitless, infinite, invisible, eternal, as if to define him as he should be according to their concepts meant to prove that he really is such, and thereby gain the right to say that he has always been such, and preceded all things. I demand that you directly prove its existence to me, and I immediately notice that your gods, who appear to me as the predecessors of all things, in fact appear after all things, and, moreover, such things that do not belong to them. But be it so! This Bythos, for countless centuries, had previously remained in the silence and in the undisturbed peace of a peace-loving, or better yet, senseless deity; in a word, he remained as Epicurus commanded him to be. Meanwhile, presenting this god as one, they give him, in union with him, another person whom they call Charis or Sige. New recklessness! They tear him out of such a blissful state so that he can extract from himself the fundamental principle of all things. He infuses this beginning into the depths of his Shige, and she becomes pregnant. The one she gives birth to is called Nus, completely similar to his father, and equal to him in everything. He alone is able to contain within himself all the infinity and all the incomprehensible greatness of his father. Why is he himself called the father, the beginning of all things, and, in fact, the only begotten, although, however, this word is not typical here, because he was not the only son. After him, another woman was born, named Truth. Wouldn't it be better for him to be called firstborn, and not only begotten, because he was the first, but not the only one, brought into the world? Thus, Bythos, Sige, Nus and Truth, as the first quadriga 3 into which the Valentinian sect was harnessed, was the original beginning and origin of all other similar gods. Nus, as soon as he received the ability to give birth, produces Word and Life, of which the latter, apparently, did not exist until then in Bythos. But how can one believe that there is no life in God? This new maiden, created at that end to lay the foundation for universality and perfect the Plerum (the home of the Aeons), for her part, gives birth and reproduces Man and the Church. Here is Osmeritsa, the double Quaternary, resulting from the copulation of male and female: this is the granary of the original Aeons, the conception of fraternal marriages between the Valentinian gods, the source of all the holiness and splendor of this heresy; or better to say, this is a collection of atrocities or gods unknown to anyone, this is the embryo of all subsequent fruitfulness. 8) The second quaternity of Word, Life, Man and Church, also did not hesitate to pay due honor to the father. Wanting to bring something from themselves to their father in accordance with their number, they produced other fruits from the union of their dual nature, and, consequently, from mutual copulation. On the one hand, the Word and Life suddenly give birth to ten Aeons, and on the other, Man and the Church give birth to two more in addition to ten, that is, twelve, in order to thus complete the entire number to thirty Aeons. The names of the ten are as follows: Bythos and Mixis, Ageratos and Genosis, Autothyes and Gedone, Acinetos and Synkrasis, Ionogenes and Makaria. And here are the names of twenty: Paraclete and Pistis, Patrikos and Elpis, Metricos and Agape, Ainus and Synesis, Ecclesiasticus and Makariotes, Teletus and Sophia. I am forced to explain here, with reference to a similar example, what is still lacking in names of this kind. In the Carthaginian schools there was a pedant Latin rhetorician named Phosphorus. One day, assuming the appearance of a brave man, he said: “Oh, fellow citizens! I have just returned from the battlefield, won victory, brought you happiness; I am glorified, increased, prosperous, triumphant.” Suddenly his students cried out: “Hurray for the Fosforov family!” – You now know the names of Ageratos, Gedone, Acineta, Teleta. What prevents you from also exclaiming: Hurray for the Ptolemaic family! Here is that mysterious Plerom, which is composed of the fullness of the Divinity, distributed among thirty persons. We will see later what advantages the numbers received: quaternary, osmeric and twelve. Meanwhile, it should be noted that all this fruitfulness stops at the number of thirty persons. Apparently, all the strength, ability and fruitful power were exhausted here, as if there were no more numbers or other names that any teacher could teach them. Why, in fact, not bring the number of generations to fifty or one hundred? Why leave the nurses and companions of all these gods in oblivion? 9) But now real partiality opens up. Nus alone of all enjoys the knowledge of the incomprehensible father and tastes joy and fun, while others are in sadness. It is true that Nus, as far as he could, wanted and even attempted to tell others what he knew about the greatness and incomprehensibility of his father. But Sige, his mother, opposed this, the same Sige who prescribes silence to heretics, her adherents, although they assign this duty to their father, who, judging by their words, wants to arouse lust through this. Meanwhile, while the Aeons were tormented within themselves, and secretly burned with the desire to know their father, the atrocity almost happened. Of the twelve Aeons produced by Man and the Church, the last one, named Sophia, cannot control himself, rushes to look for his father, without the company of his husband Philetas, and falls into vice, which, although it embraces all the other Aeons around Nous, has passed into this Aeon itself, that is, into Sophia, just as diseases born in the body pour their poison into other members. Meanwhile, under the pretext of love for her father, she harbored cruel envy of Nus, who alone enjoyed his father's advantage. When in this way Sophia, wanting the impossible, was deceived in her expectations: then, being overcome by difficulties, and indulging more and more in lusts, she almost completely burned out from the flame of love and from research about her father, and almost died from it in her essence. To tell the truth, she would not have interrupted her research before she perished, if fortunately she had not met Horus, who has the valor that he is the foundation and external guardian of the perfect Pleroma, and is also called the Cross, Lytroten and Carpiasthene. Thus, Sophia, freed from danger, and convinced of the vanity of her intention, although late, found peace, renouncing the search for her father, and gave birth to Enthymesis, that is, Desire together with Passion. 10) Others dreamed differently about the misfortune and restoration of Sofia. After futile efforts and the overthrow of her expectations, she apparently suffered ugliness, pallor, emaciation and neglect of her beauty, as is typical of a woman mourning her father who was torn from her love, shedding such bitter tears as if she had really lost him. After that, by herself, without any conjugal intercourse, in her grief she conceived and gave birth to a daughter. You are probably surprised by such a miracle. But doesn't a hen have the power to give birth on her own? They say that vulture birds are all female, and are mothers without male participation. Sophia first grieves over the imperfection of her fruit, then she is afraid that death will befall her; she does not know what to think about the cause of this incident, and carefully hides her pregnancy. There are no medicines against it anywhere. And indeed, were there then tragedies and comedies from which one could learn how to spew out or throw up the fruit produced contrary to the laws of abstinence? Enduring the pains of childbirth, she raises her eyes and turns to her father. Vain efforts! Strength leaves her: she falls to her knees to pray. The whole family intervenes and asks for her. Nus takes part in it more than others. And why not? Isn't he the cause of all evil? Meanwhile, none of Sophia’s misfortunes was useless: all her labors turned out to be fruitful. Indeed, its disasters gave birth to Matter (substance). Ignorance, Fears and Sorrows produce the same number of entities. Then her father, moved by mercy, with the assistance of Nusa the Only Begotten, gives birth to these essences in a male wife, and places his image in them. The Valentinians do not agree on what gender the Father is. They add here Horus, who is called Metagoges, that is, encircling, and Gorotetos. Through him, they say, Sophia was turned away from the prohibited path, delivered from her misfortunes, strengthened, again turned to marriage, and finally established in the Pleroma. As for her daughter Entiiezis and her companion Passion, she was expelled by Horus, crucified and excluded from the number of Aeons. It is called Evil, but it constitutes a spiritual essence, because it was a natural product of the Aeon, although, however, in itself it is an ugly and disgusting essence; for her mother embraced only emptiness, and, consequently, produced a weak, female fetus. 11) After Enthymesis was rejected, and Sophia was returned to her husband, this Only Begotten, this Nus, freed from all care regarding his father, and wishing to strengthen all things, strengthen Plerom and forever determine the number of its inhabitants, for fear that in the future he would not be disturbed again by any such disturbance, Nus concluded this number with the new generation of Christ and the Holy Spirit: this also was an abomination of copulation two males, or, as others say, the Holy Spirit was female, and the male was impregnated from the female 4 . These two beings constitute one deity, completing the union of the Aeons. From this common responsibility of both came two schools, two churches, and, as it were, the main beginning of the discord in the teaching of Valentin. It is the duty of Christ to admonish the Aeons regarding the nature of their connections, to teach them the concept of what is innate to whom, and to make them capable of generating in themselves the knowledge of the Father, because it is impossible to grasp, know, see, or hear him except through the Only Begotten. We agree that they should know Him in this way, as long as they know Him through the Son. But one cannot help but discredit their destructive teaching, which consists in the fact that the alleged incomprehensibility of the Father was the cause of the ever-present Aeons, and His intelligibility was the impetus for their generation and formation. This sentence, if I am not mistaken, inspires the idea that it would be very advantageous for God not to be understood, because the incomprehensible in Him serves as the cause of the ever-present, and the comprehended does not produce the ever-present, but generation and chance, alien to the ever-present. The son, they say, alone is able to comprehend the father. But how is it comprehended? The born Christ taught this. Regarding the Holy Spirit, his special duty is the following: to watch that all people, having the same love for teaching, also receive the same gifts of grace and enter into true peace. 12) All Aeons are equal to each other both in image and in their wisdom: in general they are what each of them is separately, not differing in anything from each other, because they are all mutually similar. Each male Aeon can pass into Nusa, into the Word, into Man, into Philetas, and the female into Sige, into the Church, into Life, so that Ovid would probably have renounced all his transformations if he had known the much more wonderful transformations of our times. So, all the Aeons are united, strengthened and enjoy peace through the Truth: then, amid the raptures of joy, they glorify the father with songs of praise. The father himself is filled with joy, hearing the joyful cries of his sons and grandchildren. And why not admire His bliss when Plerom no longer has any reason to fear anything? What helmsman doesn't have fun like crazy? Every day we see sailors indulging in immoderate and noisy delights. Have you not seen the sailors trembling with pleasure at the sight of the dinner table, in the provision of which each of them participated? Something similar happens between the Aeons. Being all mixed together in their own image, and even more so in feeling, and seeing new brothers and new rulers joining them, such as Christ and the Holy Spirit, they bring into the community everything that is best and most excellent; or maybe I’m mistaken: since they are all the same thing due to their equality mentioned before, I incorrectly compared them with a dinner table, which they call the Symbol, whose main advantage is diversity. They all bring the same good to the community, their own constituent. It might not be a bad idea to consider the method or image of their general equality. From the money received from many (heretics), judging by the inscriptions, they build in honor and glory of the Father the brilliant star Pleroma, and immediately associate Jesus, calling him Soter, Christ and the ancestral Word, in imitation of the probably outdated names of the bird of Esopus, Pandora of Hesiod, the precious dish of Aktsiev, medicine of Nestorov , all sorts of Ptolemaic things. Wouldn't it be easier for these crazy inventors of names, following the example of the Athenians in some spectacles, to call it Pancarpus (animal warfare)? But in order to give a more external shine to their magnificent idol, they also include Angels among its companions. They are equal to Soter. But if they are consubstantial with Soter (they do not say clearly on this point), then how can he be elevated above his equals? 13) The first category of Aeons contains their first origin; they are born, marry and produce children. This includes: the dangerous adventures of Sophia, eager to know her father; the benefit of Horus, who by the way came to her aid; the purifying sacrifice of Enthymesis and the companions of her Passion; teachings of Christ and the Holy Spirit; protective prototype of the Aeons; Soter's decorations, likened to peacock feathers, and, finally, Angels, his guardians, although equal to him. What then, you ask? Applaud and leave the theater; or better yet, listen to what I still have to say, and declare in advance your contempt for all this. You need to know that everything that has been said so far happened in the Pleroma district: this is the first appearance of the tragedy. The second act is performed outside the curtain that separates the stage, I mean, outside the Pleroma, if, however, it is true that to act in the presence of the father and within the supervision of Horus means to have free movement outside of God or where He is not. 14) Enthymesis or Achamoth (a new name given to her, the meaning of which is not defined), being, together with her inseparable companion Passion, exiled to places remote from the light, consisting, however, in the region of the Pleroma and reminiscent of the emptiness of Epicurus, Enthymesis suffers in poverty in the very place of her exile. It still has neither image nor appearance, being an immature and ugly work. When all this was happening, Christ, convinced by the highest Aeons, was brought down to Earth by Horus in order to perfect such an insufficient work by his power, giving him, however, an image of only the essence, and not knowledge, of which, however, she received a piece, because she retained the smell of incorruption, which warned her of her misfortune, and prompted her to desire the most excellent gifts. Christ, having completed this feat of mercy with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, returns to Pleroma. Custom ascribes names to things that are reminiscent of the deliverer. Enthymesis, by its origin, is desire. But where did Achamoth come from? Until then, this is still subject to research. Sophia comes from her father, and the Holy Spirit from the Angel who was in Christ, at a distance from whom Enthymesis felt a desire. That is why she rushed to look for light. If she did not know Christ at all, because his action was invisible, then how could she seek the light, which was as unknown to her as the culprit? But she attempted to do so, and perhaps she would have succeeded if the same Horus, who so happily helped her mother, had not confronted her daughter through misfortune and had not shouted to her: Iao, just as someone would have said: go back, Romans, or: I conjure you in the name of Caesar. This is where the word Iao comes from. Enthymesis, stopped in her quest, unable to reach the Cross, that is, Horus, because she never played any role in Laureola, Cotullus’s tragedy, and finally surrendering to the companion of her Passion, began to feel all her torment and remorse: to feel Sadness for not having time in her enterprise; feel Fear, fearing that you will lose your life, just as you lost your light; feel your Confusion and Ignorance. It was different with her than with her mother. It was Aeon; and her situation was all the more deplorable because she had to struggle with another difficulty, I want to say, with her conversion through Christ, through whom she was called to life and directed to this conversion. 15) Pythagoreans, Stoics, and you, Plato, finally learn where matter, recognized by you as self-generated, received its origin and existence in this vast vastness of the universe, learn the mystery that Mercury Trismegistus himself, the head of all natural scientists, could not penetrate. You have just heard the word Conversion, another kind of Passion. From him, as others claim, the soul of this world, the soul of the Demiurge, that is, the soul of our God, was formed. Above are Sadness and Fear: from them all creations are born. The mass of waters came from the tears of Ahamoth. You can imagine the enormity of her distress from the multitude of waters that flowed from her eyes. From it flowed waters that were salty, and bitter, and sweet, and warm, and cold, and sulfur, and iron, and saltpeter, and poisonous, so that the source Nonacris, who killed Alexander, probably borrowed its poison from them, and the springs Lipcestus and Salmacis originated, from which one produces drunkenness, and the other weakens courage. Achamoth also brought rain from the sky, emitting cries: these are our external sorrows and tears, which we store in reservoirs. In the same way, the bodily elements are extracted from her own embarrassment and timidity. Meanwhile, in the midst of her immense solitude, being left from everyone, she smiled from time to time, remembering her meeting with Christ, and light was reflected from her joyful smile. Why did this beneficial gift of Providence make her smile? Is it not so that man does not always live here on earth in darkness? Do not be surprised that such a bright element flowed from her joy, because from her sadness a much-needed figure emerged for the world. Oh, illuminating laughter! Oh, watering tear! Akhomoth, however, had a cure for the cruelty of her situation. Every time she wanted to disperse the darkness of her imprisonment, she only had to smile, so that at least she would not resort to those who had abandoned and rejected her. 16) Following her mother’s example, she decided to turn to prayer. But Christ, who apparently did not want to leave the Pleroma another time, instructed the Paraclete to take his place. As a result, he sends to her Soter or Jesus, to whom his father granted complete power over all the Aeops: he gave him the power to force the Aeons to carry out their laws, so that, according to the Apostle, everything in him would be renewed. He sent him to Achamoth, accompanied by the angels who were born with them, is it not possible to think that twelve bundles of sticks were carried before him? Achamoth, frightened by the splendor that surrounded him, puts on the veil, carried away at first by feelings of respect and modesty: then she peers into it and into its saving radiance. She approaches him, having received from him the necessary strength, and exclaims: Rejoice, Lord! Then he accepts her, strengthens her, adds the image of knowledge to her first image, and delivers her from all the sorrows of Passion, which he expels from her more thoroughly than he did before in relation to the misfortunes of her mother. Then, having collected together all these old and intensified vices over time, and making a solid mass out of them, he divided them so that they could produce bodily substance (matter); and the incorporeal Passion, not separate from Achamoth, forced it to penetrate immediately into the opposing essences of bodies, so that from this two kinds of essences arose: evil essences, born from vices, and essences subject to passions, which gave rise to Conversion. This is the origin of the substance or mother, which, among other things, has armed us against Hermogenes 5 and against anyone who claims that God created the world with the help of the mother, and not out of nothing. 17) Achamoth, freed from his troubles, prospers more and more and bears greater fruits. Flaming throughout her whole being with joy that she could escape her misfortune, and entering into a certain kind of fermentation from the contemplation of the Angelic light (it is shameful to say so, but it is impossible to express it otherwise), she falls in love with the Angels within herself, and through spiritual conception she feels her womb rising before this ghost, which the power of her delight and the joy of voluptuous lust has settled, and, so to speak, impressed on her heart. She finally gives birth. Since then, three entities have appeared, originating from three causes: the first material, born from Passion; the second soul or animal, who was the daughter of Conversion; the third is spiritual, flowing from the Imagination. 18) Having become more capable of action through her three children, she undertakes the work of improving each of these generations. But she could not achieve this in relation to the spiritual essence, although she herself was of a spiritual nature; for nature does not allow equal and homogeneous beings to act on each other mutually. In this intention, she limits her efforts on the mental or animal essence, to bring into action the Soterian laws. And, firstly, (oh blasphemy, which cannot be uttered, read, or heard without shuddering!) it produces our God, the God of all people in general, excluding heretics, the Father, Creator, King of all creatures who subsequently appeared. All of them really come from Him, and not at all from Achamoth, with whose assistance He supposedly, without knowing how, secretly and like an automaton, stimulated from the outside, moved with each of His works. Due to such confusion in the characters, heretics give this God the complex name Metropator, while all His other names are distinguished according to the property and structure of His actions, so that in relation to animate entities, placing them on the right side, they call Him Father, and in relation to material entities, placing them on the left side, they call Him Demiurge; when it comes to general government, they attribute to Him the title of King. 19) But the signification of names does not even agree with the signification of the deeds from which the names come, because all these deeds should bear the name of the one who created them, unless it was she who did them. And, in fact, saying that Achamoth, wanting to honor the Aeons, inscribed their images in her mind, the heretics deprive her of this glory, referring her to her original culprit Soter, of whom she was only an instrument, so Soter actually thrust into her the invisible and unknown image of her father and the same image of the Demiurge, and he also taught her the concept of Jesus the Demiurge, his son, at that while the Archangels, produced by the Demiurge, were representatives of all other Aeons. Seeing so many images emanating from three beings, I ask you how I can help but laugh at the images of such a crazy painter. How! The woman Achamoth is the image of her father! The Demiurge does not know his mother, much less his father! The image of Jesus, who also does not know his father! Angels, who are servants, become representatives of their rulers! This is what is called drawing a hinny after a donkey, or painting a portrait of Ptolemy after a portrait of Valentine. 20) The Demiurge, being outside the boundaries of the Pleroma, and plunging into the vale of his eternal imprisonment, created a new province or empire, this world, forming it from mental or animal and material beings, but first expelled chaos from there and brought into order the diversity of this dual essence. From incorporeal entities he creates bodies, heavy, light, descending and ascending, heavenly and earthly; then with his own seat he crowns the seven tiers of heaven: from here he received the name Sabbath because of the septenary of his abode; hence also his mother Achamoth is called Osmerice (ogdoas) following the example of the first-born Osmerice. As for the heavens, heretics attribute intelligence to them, and sometimes create Angels and even the Demiurge himself from them. Paradise is their fourth Archangel, because they place him above the third heaven. Adam retained something of his strength after being in heaven among the clouds and bushes. Ptolemy did not forget the fables told to children that there are fruits in the sea and fish in the trees. That's why he placed helicopter cities at the heights of the sky. The Demiurge acts blindly; and therefore, probably, he does not know that trees cannot grow anywhere except on the ground. Mother knew about this, undoubtedly. Why didn’t she enlighten him on this matter, forming his concepts? Having built such a vast empire for her son through deeds that proclaimed him father, god and king, why did she not want these deeds to be known to him? I will discuss this later. 21) Meanwhile, you need to know that Sophia is also called Earth and Mother, as if someone said: Mother Earth, and even funnier: Holy Spirit. The heretics gave this female creature all honors, no doubt giving him a beard, not to mention other things. Behind this, the Demiurge, by his natural weakness, being nothing more than a spiritual or animal being, was so little able to rise to spiritual things through his knowledge that, considering himself only one in the world, he said to himself: “I am God and there is no other except me.” However, he knew that before he himself did not exist. He understood that he was created or born, and that a created being must always have a Creator, no matter who he was. For what reason could he conclude that he is the only one in the world, if, without having exact certainty, he could suspect that some kind of Creator exists? 22) I more readily forgive the heretics for their reckless conclusion about the devil, judging by the baseness of his origin. They believe that he was born from the cruel sadness that Achamoth felt. They attribute the same origin to Angels and demons, and to all kinds of spiritual forces of evil. Meanwhile, they also assert that the devil is the work of the Demiurge, they call him the ruler of the world, and they believe that, by his spiritual nature, he knows the higher Aeons more than the Demiurge himself, who is entirely of a spiritual and animal nature. The father of all heresies (the devil) certainly deserves to take full advantage of the advantage given to him in this case. 23) The heretics limit the power of each of all the forces shown above within the following limits. At the loftiest height is Plerom with its thirty faces, the extreme borders of which are protected by Horus. Under this height, Achamoth occupies an intermediate place, trampling her son under foot. Below, under it, lives the Demiurge with his septenary, or better to say the devil, an inhabitant together with us of this world, of which every element, every body, as mentioned above, originated from the pernicious misfortunes of Sophia, so that the Spirit would never have the space to either inhale or emit air, which is like a light vestment of all bodies, the revival of all kinds of flowers, and an instrument for measuring times, if Sophia's grief did not give rise to some small grains, just as her fear produced animals, and also produced her own conversion and even the Demiurge himself. Fire was blown into all these elements, into all these bodies. And since they have not yet explained what the original Passion is, the work of their Sophia: then I believe that from her convulsive movements this fire gushed out. It is very likely that she was possessed by the shaker as a result of her cruel torment. 24) After such dreams about God, or about gods, what absurdities should we expect when it comes to man? The Demiurge, having produced the world, began to create man. “For his essence,” they say, “he did not choose any part of the dry land that we recognize as earth (as if it were not dry land after all, nor was it in the dust remaining after the division of the waters): but for this purpose he borrowed from the invisible body of philosophical matter that which was moist and fluid in it.” Where did this wet and fluid thing come from? I can’t think of it because it doesn’t exist anywhere. If these are the essence of two properties of a liquid, and if every liquid came from the tears of Sophia, then we must conclude that this dust was formed from the mucus and sticky moisture of Sophia, because this is the essence, if you like, of the yeast of tears, since what is erupted constitutes the dust of the waters. In this way the Demiurge creates man and revives him with his breath. From this, a person becomes earthly, spiritual or animal, in the image and likeness of the Demiurge: he becomes a quadruple creation. As an image, he is revered as earthly, that is, material, although the Demiurge is not material. As a likeness, he has a mental or animal property, which also belongs to the Demiurge. These are the first two types of it. Then the heretics want this earthly organization to be covered with a carnal garment, and this garment is a sheath of skin, susceptible to feelings. 25) Achamoth from the essence of her mother Sophia retained a piece of spiritual seed, just as she herself gave several of its crumbs to her son Demiurge, but in such a way that this one does not know it. Why such a secretive precaution? We'll find out later. Achamoth invested and concealed this seed so that when the Demiurge would transfer his soul to Adam by the power of his breath, then at the same time this spiritual seed could flow through the same channel into an earthly man, and having settled into his material body, as if into a womb, where it could be processed and matured, it would become capable of receiving the once all-perfect Word. So, when the Demiurge poured out his soul into Adam, the spiritual man, along with this breath, secretly entered and inhabited this body, because the Demiurge did not know either the seed of his mother, or his mother herself. They call this seed the Church, the image of the Church from above, the cradle of man. They produce its seed from the dust or ashes of Achamoth, just as they extract from the Demiurge everything spiritual or animal, from the original essence everything earthly, from matter all flesh. Here's Heriopov's new quaternary. 26) They put the following end on each essence: the material essence, that is, the carnal one, which they also call the left side, inevitable death; the essence of the soul, or animal, which they call for distinction the right side, death is doubtful; for, agitated between the spiritual and the material essence, it must go where it was most inclined. However, they assure that the spiritual essence is also included in the composition of the spiritual or animal essence, so that this latter can be instructed by its friend, and formed by talking with her. The soulish or animal essence lacked knowledge of sensitive things. This is why Phenomena were generated in the world. For this reason, Soter took on a mental or animal form in the world, that is, in order to save the spiritual or animal essence; but the heretics, carried away by other absurd assumptions, want him to borrow something from all three essences in order to save them in general, so that from Ahamoth he received the spiritual essence, and from the Demiurge he received the spiritual or animal Christ, in whom he soon clothed himself. Meanwhile, being bodily, because he came from a mental or animal essence, but having a composition arranged with amazing and ineffable art in relation to the implementation of the feat set before him, he (Soter) had to arm himself with extraordinary generosity in order to against his will get close to people, to be visible and tangible from them, and finally to die. But, however, there was nothing material in it, because matter is excluded from salvation, as if it were needed by anyone other than those who had lost salvation. But what are these dreams? So that the Valentinians, by denying Jesus Christ our flesh, could take away from us the hope of salvation. 27) I am finishing my discussion regarding their Christ. Others graft Jesus into it with the same impudence with which they introduce spiritual seed into a spiritual or animal essence, reinforcing it with divine breath: this is a real accumulation of nonsense that they divulge at the expense of people and at the expense of their gods. They really want the Demiurge to also have his Christ, a son born by him from his own essence. “He created it,” they say, “of a spiritual or animal nature: this is the same one that was announced by the Prophets; his being is a prepositional question, that is, that he was born through a virgin, and not from a virgin, because having entered the virgin, he passed through her, and did not come out of her according to the laws of childbirth, that he only stepped through this channel, and was not born, and that the virgin was not his mother, but he used her, as if on some kind of passing path. Then Soter, in the form of a dove, descended on this Christ during the sacrament of baptism. In “this Christ there was, moreover, the seasoning of the Spiritual seed from Achamoth, probably to prevent any damage from foreign impurities.” They give it four essences for reinforcement, following the example of the supreme quaternity: the essence of Achamoth or spiritual, the essence of Demiurge or mental or animal, the essence of bodily or ineffable, and, finally, the essence of Soter, that is, the dove. Regarding Soter, he remained in Christ to the end, being dispassionate, inviolable, inaccessible to all kinds of insults. How quickly violent actions against Christ began: Soter withdrew from him for the entire duration of Pilate’s trial. Consequently, the mother’s seed was not subjected to insults, and was removed from them, being unknown to the Demiurge himself. One spiritual or animal, one carnal Christ suffered, becoming like that highest Christ who was crucified on the cross for the creation of Achamoth, that is, on Horus under the appearance, although essential, but not subject to feeling. This is how they disfigure our dogmas, considering themselves imaginary Christians. 28) Meanwhile, the Demiurge, completely unaware of where he himself is, although he will once have to proclaim something through his Prophets, without, however, any idea about it (the heretics attribute the gift of prophecy partly to Achamoth, partly to the seed, partly to the Demiurge). The Demiurge, I say, as soon as he learned of the arrival of Soter, immediately solemnly comes out to meet him with all his forces, like some kind of centurion from the Gospels. Having been instructed in all subjects by him, he also learns from him about the hope that he is destined to take the place of his mother. Since then, secure in his existence, he continues to rule this world as long as the need arises, even if it was only to patronize the church. 29) In conclusion, I will state here what they reveal about the composition of the human race. Having declared that nature was originally threefold, but was united in all forms in Adam, they end up dividing it into three genera with special properties, borrowing the reason for this from the very offspring of Adam, who were also divided into three according to their moral qualities. Cain, Abel and Seth, as in some way the sources of the human race, become for them three streams of nature and special essences. They assign to Cain an earthly essence removed from salvation; Abel represents the soulish or animal essence, predestined for doubtful hope; in Seth they contain a spiritual essence awaiting imminent salvation. They distinguish souls in the same way by their dual properties of good and evil, depending on what kind of essence they perceive, whether earthly from Cain, spiritual or animal from Abel, or spiritual from Seth. Moreover, not by right of nature, but as a simple benevolence, they from time to time bring down to the earth that dew that Achamoth pours from heaven on good souls, that is, on souls that are in the mental or animal category; for as for the souls of the earthly kind, in other words, for the evil souls: they are completely denied salvation. They emphatically declare that nature tolerates neither change nor transformation. In good souls, the grain of spiritual seed is at first very small and weak when sown; but as it unfolds, faith grows with it, as noted above. It constitutes the main principle of the superiority of these souls over others, so that the Demiurge, even during his ignorance, had deep respect for them. In the paintings of these souls he usually chose the names of kings and high priests. If these souls acquire full and perfect knowledge of such absurdities, then, having submitted to these properties through the affinity of the spiritual seed, they will receive an undoubted salvation, which belongs to them by all rights. 30) In general, heretics consider deeds to be useless for themselves, and free themselves from all debt, recognizing even martyrdom as unnecessary, no one knows under what empty pretext. They want this rule to extend only to spiritual or animal seed, so that we, other people, through the dignity of works, acquire that salvation that we do not have due to the advantage of our nature. We are in the category of this seed and belong to an imperfect essence, descending from the love affairs of Philetas and being the offspring of a lawful mother. But woe to us when we decide to throw off any yoke of commandments, when we do not remain firm in the deeds of holiness and truth, when we wish to testify to our faith in another place (we don’t know which), and not before the authorities of this world and not before the court of proconsuls! As for them: they appropriate to themselves the complete nobility of origin through the willfulness of their lives and love for debauchery. Achamoth is obliged to protect her followers in every possible way, because she herself was so successful in her atrocities. They even say that in order to honor heavenly marriages, they must always delve into the sacrament of marriage and celebrate it by copulating right there with a friend, that is, with a woman. However, whoever lives in this world without loving a woman and not mating with her, they consider him a degenerate person, a bastard of the truth. What will happen to the eunuchs we see among them? 31) It remains to talk about improvement and the distribution of rewards. Achamoth, having finished the harvest of all her offspring, must gather it into her granaries, or when she, having brought this seed to the mill and ground it into flour, puts it in a special chest, where it must mix and sour, at that time general perfection will follow. Then Achamoth, leaving the middle country and the second tier of heaven, will move to its highest reaches and enter the Pleroma. After this, Soter, made up of all the Aeons, will accept her and become her husband: a new marriage, a new couple! Another husband and wife in the Pleroma! Others will rightly think that the laws of Julius and Caius 6 always accompanied the Aeons during their migrations from place to place. The Demiurge himself, having left his celestial seven, will ascend to the highest tier and sit at the empty meal of his mother, whom then, although he will know, he will not be worthy of seeing. If this is so, then it would be better for him to remain forever in his ignorance. 32) The fate of the human race is as follows. Whoever has an earthly and material sign is inevitably subject to final destruction, because all flesh is like the grain of the field, and according to the system of heretics, the soul itself must die, excluding souls who have found salvation through faith. The righteous souls, that is, ours, will be transported to the Demiurge in the middle villages. Thanks heresy. But we prefer to dwell better with our God, to whom we are allowed to ascend. No spiritual or animal essence is accepted into the palaces of the Pleroma, except for the spiritual host of Valentinov. Here people, that is, internal people, are starting to get distracted. To be separated means to leave the souls in which they seemed to be clothed, and to return to their Demiurge those souls that they received at a distance from him. Then they will become purely rational, intangible, invisible spirits, and in this state they will be introduced invisibly and mysteriously into the Pleroma. - And after? - They will be distributed to the Angels, the companions of Soter. - Maybe as sons? - No. - Not in order to be their servants? - Not at all. - In that case, in order to be their image? - God would grant that they, at least, that honored. - To what end, if I may ask? - So that these souls would be their spouses. What is the fate of the Angels? They will enjoy the pleasures of marriage by kidnapping and dividing these Sabinas among themselves. This is the reward for spiritual people; a real reward for their faith. Such is the merit of all these fables. By their mercy, some Mark, Caius or Severus, having ascended to this pulpit of wickedness, whoever he may be, husband, father, grandfather or great-grandfather, as long as he is a man, can enter the bridal chamber of the Pleroma in order to give birth from an Angel (one cannot help but blush with shame) some exemplary Aeon. When these marriages, legally celebrated under the brilliance of lamps and under the cover of scarlet, become a custom, then, it seems to me that a secret fire, flaring up, will devour the entire essence of heresy, turn to dust and destroy everything that they have life; and then it will disappear itself. From then on, at least, there will be no more fables. But what am I, impudent, doing? It’s not enough that I discovered such a great mystery, I still dare to mock. I am afraid that Achamoth, who hid herself from her own son, will go crazy because of him. Philetus will probably be angry; Fortune will also frown. Meanwhile, I, the creature of the Demiurge, must return after my death to a place where there is no marriage, where instead of seduction I must put on this body the clothes of immortality, where, even if I lose my sex, I will become like the Angels, where there are no Angels, neither male nor female, where no one will scold my body, which will then assume its masculine strength. 33) After such a wonderful comedy, I will now present, as if the last act, special items that I have put aside until now on purpose so as not to disrupt the order of the story and not to distract the reader’s attention by introducing such details with which even the followers of Ptolemy do not agree. Indeed, students came out of his school who surpassed him. They appointed two wives for Bythos: Thought and Will. Thought was truly insufficient for him, because with her alone he could not produce anything, whereas with the help of both wives all works could be conveniently performed. The first fruit of this copulation was the Only Begotten and Truth: Truth, a female being, was created in the image of thought, and the Only Begotten, a male being, in the image of will. The will, which brings into action the concepts of Thought by its power, has apparently taken the male sex into its power. 34) Other wise men, more respectful, remembering the honor due to God, in order to save him from the shame of having even one wife, decided for the best not to assign any gender to Bythos: perhaps they even revered him for something interstitial. Others went even further. They claim that their God includes the male and female sexes together, probably so that Fenestella, the interpreter of the chronicles, does not imagine that there are no hermaphrodites anywhere except the moon. 35) There are also those who assign Bitos not first, but second place, placing above all the osmerica, which, however, is derived from the quaternity, only under different names. The first of the four is Proarchus, the second is Anennost, the third is Arretos, and the fourth is Aoratos. From Proarchus in the first and fifth degrees came Archaeus, from Anennostos in the second and sixth degrees Acataleptos, from Arretos in the third and seventh degrees Anonomastos, and from Aoratos or the Invisible in the fourth and eighth degrees Agennetos. Why is each of these Aeons born in two different degrees and at a distance far from each other? It’s better not to know about it than to find out. What wisdom can lie in such absurd inventions? 36) Those who act much more prudently are those who, rejecting these deplorable nonsense, do not want one Aeon to serve as a step for another, like the Haemon 7th ladder, and in one fell swoop produce this Osmeritsa under the wing of the Father and his Ennei, that is, his Thoughts. In a word, each name corresponds to his movement or wave. “When,” they say, “he thinks about a product, then for this reason he is called father; when he produces, then producing true things is called truth; when he wanted to reveal himself, he received the name of man. Those whom he produced, having pondered their existence in his thoughts, were then called the Church. The man spoke the Word, and the firstborn son appeared. Life joined the Word and the first Osmeritsa was accomplished.” Isn't it true that all this is nothing more than deep recklessness? 37) Listen to other discoveries of this crazy man, already desecrated by Ennius, this most noble teacher of the Sectators, who, by the power of the high priest he assumed for himself, proclaimed the following: “before all things there was a Proarchus, unimaginable, inexplicable, for whom there is no name in human language. I call him Menotes: with him was another force, which I call Genotes. Menotes and Genotes, that is, Solitude and Unity, being one and the same, produced, without producing, the mental innate principle of all things, which in Greek is called Monadea. This latter contains a consubstantial force, which is called Union. These four forces: Solitude, Separateness, Unity and Union gave birth to all other Aeons.” – Wonderful diversity! Change the names, and there will be union and unity, solitude and individuality; but no matter how you change them, everything will be the same. 38) Sekund was somewhat more humane because he spoke more briefly. He divides Osmeritsa into two quaternities, right and left, into light and darkness; he only wants the imperfect and immature power to come not from any of the thirty Aeons, but from the fruits of their essences. 39) What is the disagreement between them about our Lord Jesus Christ? Some believe that He came from all the Aeons. Others claim that He was produced only by ten, born of the Word and Life: that is why the Word and Life fixed their eyes on Him. Some consider Him to be the fruit of twelve Aeons, born of Man and the Church; and therefore He is called the son of man. Others say that He was produced by the supreme Christ and the Holy Spirit, whose duty is to preserve universality, and that by the power of His rights He inherits the name borne by the Father. There are also those who decided to attribute a special origin to the Son of Man, and, because of the greatness of the mystery of His name, they dared to give the Father Himself the name of man. Oh, madman! What can you expect from God, whom you make your equal? Where do they get such inventions from? No doubt from the unclean seed of their mother. In this way, the teaching of the Valentinians, constantly spreading and exaggerating, finally disappears into the dense darkness of the Gnostics. This article seems to have been extracted by Tertullian from a work written before him on the same subject by the Hieromartyr Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons. Written in 308 A.D. A two-wheeled chariot drawn by four horses. The reader must not forget that this is the opinion of heretics. Transl. See the next twenty-first article. The first is a law against adultery, and the second is about the rights of Roman citizenship. This was the name given by the Romans to the place from where criminals were thrown into the Tiber. You might be interested in: