p. 274.“For it was before and will be. Never I ween
Will the unquenchable aeon be devoid of these two.”
What are these (two)? Strife and Love.[91] But their love makes the cosmos incorruptible and eternal, as they think. For substance and the cosmos are one. But strife rends asunder and diversifies, and tries by every means to make the world divide. Just as one cuts arithmetically the myriad into thousands and hundreds and tens and drachmas, and obols, and quarters by dividing it into small parts, so Strife cuts the substance of the cosmos into animals, plants, metals and such like things. And Strife is according to them, the Demiurge[92] of the generation of all things coming to pass, and Love governs and provides for the universe, so that it abides. And having collected into one the scattered and rent (things) of the universe and leading them forth from life, it joins and adds them to the universe so that it may abide and be one. Never therefore will Strife cease from dividing the cosmos, nor Love from attaching together p. 275. the separated things of the cosmos. Something like this it seems is the “distribution”[93] according to Pythagoras. But Pythagoras says that the stars are fragments[94] of the sun and that the souls of animals are borne (to us) from the stars. And that the same (souls) are mortal when they are in the body being buried as it were in a tomb; but that they will rise again and become immortal when we are separated from our bodies. Whence Plato being asked by some one what Philosophy is, said: “It is a separation of soul from body.”
26. Pythagoras, then, becoming a learner of these opinions, declared some of them by means of enigmas and such like phrases, (such as:) “If you are away from home, turn not back. Otherwise, the Furies the helpers of justice will punish you.”[95] (For) he calls your home the body and p. 276. the passions the Furies. If then, he says, you are away from home, that is: if you have come forth from the body, do not seek after it; but if you return to it, the passions will again shut you up in a body. For they think there is a change of bodies (μετενσωμάτωσις); as also Empedocles, when Pythagorizing, says. For the pleasure-loving souls, as Plato says,[96] if they do not philosophize when in man’s estate, must pass through the bodies of all animals and plants and again return to a human body. But if (such a one) does philosophize,[97] he will in the same way go on high thrice to his kindred star; but if he does not philosophize will return again to the same things. Thus he tells us that the soul is at once mortal if it be ruled by the Furies, that is, by the Passions, and immortal if it flees from them.
27. But seeing that we have picked out for narration the things darkly uttered to his disciples under the veil of symbols, it seems fitting to recall other sayings (of his), because the heresiarchs attempt to deal in symbols in the same way; and these not their own, but using the words of Pythagoras. p. 277. Now Pythagoras teaches his disciples saying “Bind up the bed-sack,” since they who are setting out on a journey make their clothing into a bundle, so as to be ready for the road. Thus he wishes his disciples to be ready, as if at any moment death might come upon them, so that they may not be caught lacking anything. Wherefore he is obliged to enjoin the Pythagorean every morning to bind up the bed-sack, that is to prepare for death. “Do not stir the fire with a sword,” meaning do not provoke angry men; for he likens an angry man to a fire and speech to a sword. “Do not tread on sweepings,” that is, do not look down upon trifles. “Do not grow a palm in a house,” that is, do not make a cause of strife in it. For the palm is a symbol of fighting and strife. “Eat not from a stool” (that is), practise no ignoble art, that you may not be a slave to the corruptible body, but make your livelihood by lectures. For it is possible at once to nourish the body p. 278. and to improve the soul. “From a whole loaf bite off nought,” (that is) diminish not that which belongs to you, but live on the income and keep the capital like a whole loaf. “Eat not beans” (that is) Take not the rule of a city. For by beans the rulers[98] were then elected.[99]
28. These and such like things, then, the Pythagoreans say, imitating whom the heretics think they declare great things to certain men. The Pythagorean doctrine says that the Great Geometrician and Reckoner[100] the Sun is the Demiurge of all things that are, and is fixed in the whole cosmos like the soul in bodies, as says Plato. For the Sun like the soul is fire, but the earth a body. But if fire were absent, nothing could be seen, nor could there be any solid perceptible to the touch; for there is no solid without earth. Whence God having put air in the midst, fashioned the body of the universe from fire and earth.[101] But the Sun reckons and measures the cosmos in some such fashion as this. The cosmos is that perceptible one of which we are now speaking. But (the Sun) divides it as an arithmetician and geometrician into twelve parts. And the names of these p. 279. parts are:—Ram, Bull, Twins, Crab, Lion, Virgin, Scales, Scorpion, Archer, He-goat, Waterbearer and Fishes. Again, he divides each of the twelve parts into thirty which are the thirty days of the month. And again he divides each of the thirty parts into sixty minutes and (each) minute into yet smaller and smaller parts. And thus ever creating without ceasing, but gathering together from these divided parts and making a cycle, and again dissolving it and separating that which has been put together, he perfects the great deathless cosmos.[102]
29. Something like this, as I have just summarily said, is the teaching framed by Pythagoras and Plato. From which and not from the Gospels, Valentinus has drawn his own heresy, as we shall show, and should therefore be reckoned a Pythagorean and a Platonist, but not as a Christian. Accordingly he and Heracleon and Ptolemy and all their school, the disciples of Pythagoras and Plato copying their teachers, have framed an arithmetical doctrine of their own. p. 280. For indeed an unbegotten, incorruptible, incomprehensible fruitful Monad is to them the beginning of all and the cause of the birth of all things that are. Yet a certain wide difference is found among them. For some of them, that they may keep wholly pure the Pythagorean teaching of Valentinus, consider the Father to be unfeminine,[103] spouseless, and alone: whereas the others, thinking it absolutely impossible that there could be a birth of all things that have been born from any single male, are compelled to reckon Sige[104] as a spouse to the Father of the universals in order that he may become a father. But as to whether Sige is a spouse or not, let them fight it out with each other.[105] We, keeping steadfast at present to the Pythagorean (doctrine of) the beginning and remembering what others teach, say that He is one, without spouse, without female, in need of nought. In a word (Valentinus) says at the beginning nothing was begotten, but the Father was alone, unbegotten, having neither place, nor time, nor counsellor, nor any other thing that by any figure of speech could be understood as essence.[106] But He was alone and solitary, as they say, and resting alone within Himself. And when He was filled with fruit, He saw fit to beget and bring forth the most p. 281. beautiful and perfect thing He had within Himself. For He did not love to be alone.[107] For He, Valentinus says, was all Love and love is not love unless there be something to be loved. Then the Father himself projected and engendered, as He was alone, Mind and Truth,[108] that is a dyad, which became the lady and beginning and mother of all the aeons reckoned by them as being within the Pleroma. But Nous and Aletheia having been projected by the Father, a fruitful (projection) from the fruitful, imitating the Father projected also the Word and Life;[109] and Logos and Zoe projected Man and the Church.[110] But Nous and Aletheia when they saw that their own special progeny had become fruitful, gave thanks to the Father of the universals and offered to him a perfect number, ten Aeons. For than this, he says, Nous and Aletheia could offer to the Father no more perfect number. For the Father being perfect ought to be glorified with a perfect number. And the ten is perfect because as the first of things that came into being by addition, it is complete.[111] But the Father is more perfect because he p. 282. alone is unbegotten, and by the first single syzygy of Nous and Aletheia supplied the projection of all the roots of the things that are.
30. Then when Logos and Zoe saw that Nous and Aletheia had glorified the Father of the universals in a perfect number, Logos himself with Zoe[112] also wished to glorify his own father and mother, Nous and Aletheia. But since Nous and Aletheia were begotten and did not possess the complete paternal unbegotten nature,[113] Logos and Zoe did not glorify their father Nous with a perfect number, but with an imperfect one: for Logos and Zoe offer twelve Aeons to Nous and Aletheia. For the first roots of the Aeons according to Valentinus were Nous and Aletheia, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. But there are twelve Aeons two of which are the children of Nous and Aletheia and ten those of Logos and Zoe, in all twenty-eight. And these are the names by which they call (the ten): Profound and Mixture, Who-grows-not-old and Oneness, Self-grown and p. 283. Pleasure, Unmoved and Blending, Unique and Blessedness.[114] Of these ten Aeons some say that they are by Nous and Aletheia and others by Logos and Zoe; and there are twelve others which some say are by Anthropos and Ecclesia and others by Logos and Zoe. To whom they give these names: Paraclete and Faith, Fatherly and Hope, Motherly and Love, Ever-thinking and Union, Of the Church and Blessed, Beloved and Wisdom.[115] Of the twelve the twelfth and youngest of all the twenty-four Aeons who was a female and called Sophia,[116] perceived the multitude and power of the Aeons who had been begotten and shot up into the Height of the Father. And she comprehended that all the other begotten Aeons existed and had been brought forth in pairs, but that the Father alone produced without a partner. She wished to imitate the Father and gave birth by herself and apart from her spouse, so that she might work no work lacking anything more than did the work of the Father, p. 284. being ignorant that only the Unbegotten principle and root and height and depth of the universals can possibly bring forth alone. For in the Unbegotten, he says, all things exist together; but among the begotten the female is the projector of substance, but the male gives form to the substance[117] which the female projects. Therefore Sophia projected only that which she could, a substance shapeless and unformed.[118] And this, he says, is what Moses said: “Now the earth was invisible and unformed.”[118] She, he says, is the good or heavenly Jerusalem into which God declared he would lead the children of Israel, saying: “I will lead you into a good land flowing with milk and honey.”[119]
31. Ignorance, then, having come about within the Pleroma by Sophia, and formlessness by the offspring of Sophia, confusion came to pass within it. For the Aeons (feared) that what was born from them would be born p. 285. shapeless and imperfect, and that corruption would before long destroy them. Then all the Aeons took refuge in prayers to the Father that he would give rest to the sorrowing Sophia. For she was weeping and mourning over the Abortion[120] brought forth by her—for so they call it. Then the Father took pity on the tears of Sophia, and hearkened to the prayers of the Aeons and commanded a projection to be made. For he himself did not project, but Nous and Aletheia projected Christ and the Holy Spirit for the giving form to and the separation of the Ectroma and the relief and intermission of the groans of Sophia. And thirty Aeons came into existence with Christ and the Holy Spirit. But some of them will have it that there is a triacontad of Aeons, but others that Sige co-exists with the Father, and wish the Aeons to be counted in with those (two). Then, when Christ and the Holy Spirit had been projected[121] by Nous and Aletheia, he straightway separates from the complete Aeons Ectroma, the shapeless and unique[122] thing which had been brought forth by Sophia apart from her p. 286. spouse, so that the perfect Aeons might not be troubled by the sight of her shapelessness. Then, that the shapelessness of Ectroma might no way be apparent to the perfect Aeons, the Father again projected one Aeon (to wit) the Cross, who having been born great from the great and perfect Father and projected as a guard and palisade to the Aeons, becomes the limit of the Pleroma containing within him all the thirty Aeons together: for they were projected before him. And he is called Horos because he separates from the Pleroma the Void[123] without; and Metocheus[124] because he partakes also in the Hysterema; and Stauros because he is fixed unbendingly and unchangeably, so that nothing from the Hysterema can abide near the Aeons who p. 287. are within the Pleroma. And when Sophia Without had been transformed and it was not possible for Christ and the Holy Spirit, the projections of Nous and Aletheia, to remain outside the Pleroma, they returned from her who had been transformed, to Nous and Aletheia within Horos, so that he with the other Aeons might glorify the Father.
32. Since then there was a certain single peace and harmony of all the Aeons within the Pleroma, it seemed good to them not only to have glorified the Father in pairs, but also to glorify him by the offering to him of fitting fruits. Therefore all the thirty Aeons were well pleased to project one Aeon, the Common Fruit of the Pleroma, so that he might be the (fruit) of their unity and likemindedness and peace. And as He alone was projected by all the Father’s Aeons, He is called by them the Common Fruit of the Pleroma. Thus then were things within the Pleroma. And the Common Fruit of the Pleroma was projected, (to wit) Jesus—for that is His name—the Great High Priest. p. 288. But Sophia without the Pleroma seeking after Christ, who had given her shape and the Holy Spirit, stood in great fear, lest she might perish when separated from Him who had given her shape and had established her. And she mourned and was in great perplexity considering who it was that had given her shape, who the Holy Spirit was, whence she had gone forth, who had hindered them from coming near her, (and) who had begrudged her that fair and blessed vision. Brought low by these passions, she turns to beseeching supplication of Him who had left her. Then Christ who was within the Pleroma had compassion on her beseeching, as had all the Aeons of the Pleroma, and they send forth outside the Pleroma its Common Fruit to be a spouse to Sophia Without and the corrector of the passions which she suffered while seeking after Christ.[125] Then the Fruit being outside the Pleroma and finding her amid the first four passions (to wit) in fear and grief and perplexity and supplication, corrected her passions, but did not think it seemly in correcting them that they should be destroyed, since they p. 289. were eternal and special to Sophia, nor yet that Sophia should be among such passions as fear and grief, supplication and perplexity. He, therefore, being so great an Aeon and the offspring of the whole Pleroma, made the passions stand away from her and He made them fundamental essences.[126] And He made the fear into the essence of the soul,[127] and the grief into that of matter, and the perplexity into (that) of demons, but the conversion and entreaty and supplication He made a path to repentance and (the) power of the soul’s essence, which (essence) is called the Right Hand or Demiurge from fear. This, he says, is the Scripture saying: “The beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord.”[128] For it was the beginning of the passions of Sophia. For she feared, then she grieved, then she was perplexed, and p. 290. then she took refuge in prayer and supplication. And the essence of the soul, he says, is fiery and is called a (supercelestial) Place and Hebdomad and Ancient of Days.[129] And whatever things they say of him, he says, the same belong to the psychic one whom they declare to be the Demiurge of the Cosmos; but he is fiery. And Moses also, he says, spake, “The Lord thy God is a burning and consuming fire.”[130] And truly he wishes this (text) to be thus written. But the power of the fire, he says, is in some sort double; for it is an all-devouring fire (and) cannot be quenched. And according to this, indeed, a part of the soul is mortal, being a certain middle state; for it is a Hebdomad and Laying to Rest. For below (the soul) is of the Ogdoad where is Sophia, a day which has been given shape, and the Common Fruit of the Pleroma; but above it is of Matter wherein is the Demiurge.[131] If it makes itself completely like those who are on high in the Ogdoad, it becomes immortal and comes to the Ogdoad, which is, he says, the heavenly Jerusalem; but if it makes itself completely like matter, that is to the material passions, it is corruptible and is destroyed.