[536]. This demon in the shape of a flying arrow seems to be well known in Rabbinic lore. Mr Whinfield in J.R.A.S., April, 1910, pp. 485, 486, describes him as having a head like a calf, with one horn rising out of his forehead like a cruse or pitcher, while to look upon him is certain death to man or beast. His authority seems to be Rapaport’s Tales from the Midrash.
[537]. The basilisk with seven heads seems to be Death. See Gaster, “The Apocalypse of Abraham,” T.S.B.A. vol. IX. pt 1, p. 222, where this is said to be the “true shape” of death. Cf. Kohler, “Pre-Talmudic Haggadah,” J.Q.R., 1895, p. 590. Death, as we have seen in [Chap. IX], p. [107], was in the ideas of Valentinus the creature of the Demiurge. For the dragon, see Whinfield, ubi cit.
[538]. These “three times” are not years. As the Pistis Sophia opens with the announcement that Jesus spent 12 years on earth after the Resurrection, we may suppose that He was then—if the author accepted the traditional view that He suffered at 33—exactly 45 years old, and the “time” would then be a period of 15 years, as was probably the indiction. The descent of the “two vestures” upon Jesus is said (p. 4, Copt.) to have taken place “on the 15th day of the month Tybi” which is the day Clement of Alexandria (Strom. Bk I. c. 21) gives for the birth of Jesus. He says the followers of Basilides gave the same day as that of His baptism.
[539]. Epiphanius, Haer. XXVI. t. II. pt 1, p. 181, Oehler.
[540]. This doctrine of ἑρμηνεία occurs all through the book. The author is trying to make out that well-known passages of both the Old and New Testaments were in fact prophetic utterances showing forth in advance the marvels he narrates. While the Psalms of David quoted by him are Canonical, the Odes of Solomon are the Apocrypha known under that name and quoted by Lactantius (Div. Inst. Bk IV. c. 12). For some time the Pistis Sophia was the only authority for their contents, but in 1909 Dr Rendel Harris found nearly the whole collection in a Syriac MS. of the 16th century. A translation has since been published in Cambridge Texts and Studies, vol. VIII. No. 3, Cambridge, 1912, by the Bishop of Ossory, who shows, as it seems conclusively, that they were the hymns sung by the newly-baptized in the Primitive Church.
[541]. Astrological doctrine first becomes prominent in Gnostic teaching in the Excerpta Theodoti which we owe to Clement of Alexandria. We may therefore put their date about the year 200. This would be after the time of Valentinus himself, but agrees well with what M. Cumont (Astrology and Religion, pp. 96 sqq.) says as to the great vogue which astrology attained in Rome under the Severi. Its intrusion into the Valentinian doctrines is much more marked in the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος than in the Pistis Sophia, and more in the Bruce Papyrus than in either.
[542]. See [Chap. VIII], pp. [73], [74] supra.
[543]. Origen, cont. Cels. Bk VI. c. 34.
[544]. Hippolytus ([Chap. IX], p. [92]), speaks of the Jesus of Valentinus as the Joint Fruit of the Pleroma simply. Irenaeus (Bk I. c. 1, p. 23, Harvey) goes into more detail: Καὶ ὑπὲρ τῆς εὐποιΐας ταύτης βουλῇ μιᾷ καὶ γνώμῃ τὸ πᾶν Πλήρωμα τῶν Αἰώνων, συνευδοκοῦντος τοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ τοῦ Πνεύματος, τοῦ δὲ Πατρὸς αὐτῶν συνεπισφραγιζομένου, ἕνα ἕκαστον τῶν Αἰώνων, ὅπερ εἶχεν ἐν ἑαυτῷ κάλλιστον καὶ ἀνθηρότατον συνενεγκαμένους καὶ ἐρανισαμένους, καὶ ταῦτα ἁρμοδίως πλέξαντας, καὶ ἐμμελῶς ἑνώσαντας, προβαλέσθαι προβλήματα εἰς τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν τοῦ Βυθοῦ, τελειότατον κάλλος τε καὶ ἄστρον τοῦ Πληρώματος, τέλειον καρπὸν τὸν Ἰησοῦν ὃν καὶ Σωτῆρα προσαγορευθῆναι, καὶ Χριστὸν, καὶ Λόγον πατρωνομικῶς καὶ κατὰ [καὶ τὰ] Πάντα, διὰ τὸ ἀπὸ πάντων εἶναι. “Αnd because of this benefit, with one will and opinion, the whole Pleroma of the Aeons, with the consent of Christos and the Spirit, and their Father having set his seal upon the motion, brought together and combined what each of them had in him which was most beautiful and brightest, and wreathing these fittingly together and properly uniting them, they projected a projection to the honour and glory of Bythos, the most perfect beauty and star of the Pleroma, the perfect Fruit Jesus, who is also called Saviour and Christ, and after his Father Logos, and Pan, because He is from all.” Compare with these the words of Colossians ii. 9: ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ κατοικεῖ πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος σωματικῶς. “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”
[545]. That the Valentinians considered the Dodecad (and a fortiori the Decad) as having a collective entity, and as it were a corporate existence, seems plain from what Hippolytus says in narrating the opinions of Marcus: ταῦτα γὰρ δώδεκα ζώδια φανερώτατα τὴν τοῦ Ἀνθρώπου καὶ τῆς Ἐκκλησίας θυγατέρα δωδεκάδα ἀποσκιάζειν λέγουσι. “For they say that these 12 signs of the Zodiac most clearly shadow forth the Dodecad who is the daughter of Anthropos and Ecclesia” (Hipp. op. cit. Bk VI. c. 54, p. 329, Cruice). And again (loc. cit. p. 331, Cruice): ἔτι μὴν καὶ τὴν γῆν εἰς δώδεκα κλίματα διῃρῆσθαι φάσκοντες, καὶ καθ’ ἒν ἕκαστον κλίμα, ἀνὰ μίαν δύναμιν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανῶν κατὰ κάθετον ὑποδεχομένην, καὶ ὁμοούσια τίκτουσαν τέκνα τῇ καταπεμπούσῃ κατὰ τὴν ἀπόρροιαν δυνάμει, τύπον εἶναι τῆς ἄνω δωδεκάδος. “These are also they who assert that the earth is divided into twelve climates, and receives in each climate one special power from the heavens and produces children resembling the power thus sent down by emanation, being thus a type of the Dodecad above.” The doctrine of correspondences or, as it was called in the Middle Ages, of “signatures” is here most clearly stated. In all this the Valentinian teaching was doubtless under the influence of the ancient Egyptian ideas as to the paut neteru or “company of the gods,” as to which see Maspero’s essay Sur L’Ennéade quoted above.