However this may be, all the Valentinian schools seem to have agreed upon the emanation which immediately proceeded from the Deep or the Father of All. From Bythos, either alone or with the help of Sige[[340]], there proceeded Mind or Nous (Νοῦς), called also Monogenes[[341]] and the Father, the beginning of all subsequent things. This Nous is said to be “equal and like” to him from whom he had emanated, and by himself capable of comprehending the greatness of Bythos[[342]]. With Nous there also came forth a female Power named Aletheia or Truth (Ἀλήθεια), and this pair gave birth to a second syzygy, viz. Logos or the Word (Λόγος) and Zoe or Life (Ζωὴ), who in their turn produced a third pair, namely: Anthropos, Man (Ἄνθρωπος) and Ecclesia, the Church (Ἐκκλησία)[[343]]. The later Valentinians, from whom Irenaeus quotes, added to these six aeons, Bythos and his spouse Sige, thus making up the originating Ogdoad or eightfold Godhead again called the root and substance of all [subsequent] things[[344]]. Valentinus himself, however, probably did not give Bythos a spouse and held that he remained apart from and uplifted above his six principal emanations[[345]].
This subdivision of the Divine, resembling as it does the system of Simon Magus before described, may seem at first sight incredibly foolish and complicated, especially when it is considered that these “aeons,” as Valentinus calls them, might be considered not only as powers but as worlds. So it did to the Fathers, who are never tired of pouring contempt upon it. Tertullian makes merry over the Valentinian conception of a universe with an endless series of heavens piled one over the other, as he says, like the “Lodgings to let” of a Roman insula or tenement house, or, had he ever seen one, of a New York skyscraper[[346]]. Irenaeus jokes cumbrously, comparing the Valentinian aeons to vegetables as if, he says, a gourd should bring forth a cucumber and this in its turn a melon[[347]]. Hippolytus, indeed, cannot indulge in such jeers because to do so would have stamped him in the opinion of all the learned of his time as an uneducated barbarian, his pet theory of Gnosticism being that all its doctrine was a plagiarism from the Greek philosophers and notably from Plato. Yet he never loses an opportunity of calling Valentinus’ opinions “worthless”; and goes out of his way to tack on to them the system of the Jewish magician Marcus, who, if we can believe the statements of the Fathers, exploited the rising sense of religion of the age for his own immoral or interested purpose[[348]].
Yet a statement that Tertullian lets drop, as if accidentally, may teach us to beware of taking Valentinus’ supposed opinions on the nature of these hypostases or Persons of the Godhead more literally than he did himself. In his treatise against the Valentinians the “furious African barrister” is led away by the exigencies of his own rhetoric to tell us that there were some among them who looked upon all this elaborate description of the emanations of the Ogdoad as a figure of speech. All the aeons of the Ogdoad were according to them merely attributes or names of God. When, they said, God thought of producing offspring, He thereby acquired the name of Father; and because his offspring was true, that of Truth; and because He wished to appear in human form, he was called Man; and because He assembled His attributes in His mind and selected from them those most proper for His purpose, they were called the Church; and as His only (or unique) Son was, as it were, uttered or sent forth to mankind, He was called the Word; and from His powers of salvation, Life; and so on[[349]]. As we have seen, Valentinus did not invent de novo his conception of the Godhead, which bears besides evident marks of having been adopted with slight modification from that of Simon Magus and the Ophites. This statement of Tertullian gives us ground therefore for supposing that he may really have held the same views respecting the Divine Nature as the Catholic Church, merely giving an allegorical explanation of the earlier opinions to convince his hearers that the teaching of the Apostles was not so subversive of or inconsistent with the way of thinking of the ancient theologians and philosophers as some of them thought. Clement of Alexandria shows similar comprehensiveness when he said that in the Christian faith there are some mysteries more excellent than others—or, in other words, degrees in knowledge and grace[[350]]—, that the Hellenic philosophy fits him who studies it for the reception of the truth[[351]], and that the Christian should rejoice in the name of Gnostic, so long as he understands that the true Gnostic is he who imitates God as far as possible[[352]]. He even goes further, and himself uses the Gnostic method of personification of abstract qualities, as when he says that Reverence is the daughter of Law[[353]], and Simplicity, Innocence, Decorum, and Love, the daughters of Faith[[354]]. If Valentinus used similar metaphors, it by no means follows that he was thereby advocating the worship of many gods, which was the accusation most frequently brought against him by the Catholic Church. The same accusation might with equal propriety be made against John Bunyan on account of his Interpreter and his Mr Greatheart.
But whatever Valentinus’ own views with regard to the Supreme Being may have been, he could no more escape than did Philo or any other Platonist from the difficulty of explaining the connection of this Perfect God with imperfect matter[[355]], and this had to be the work in his system of an intermediate Power. This Power was that Nous or Monogenes whom we have seen was the first and unique being produced from the Unknowable Father, to whom he seems to have stood in much the same relation as the Dionysos of the Orphics did to the supreme Zeus[[356]]. Yet although it was through this lieutenant of the Unknown Father that all things were made, he also was too great to act directly upon matter. Seeing, says Hippolytus in this connection, that their own offspring, Logos and Zoe, had brought forth descendants capable of transmission, Nous and his partner Aletheia returned thanks to the Father of All and offered to him a perfect number in the shape of ten aeons[[357]]. These ten aeons were projected like the direct emanations of the Godhead in syzygies or pairs, their names being respectively Bythios or Deep (Βυθιὸς[[358]]) and Mixis or Mixture (Μίξις), Ageratos or Who Grows not Old (Ἀγήρατος) and Henosis or Oneness (Ἕνωσις), Autophyes or Self-Produced (Αὐτοφύης[[359]]) and Hedone or Pleasure (Ἡδονή), Akinetos or Who Cannot Be Moved (Ἀκίνητος) and Syncrasis or Blending (Σύγκρασις), Monogenes or the Unique (Μονογενὴς)[[360]] and Macaria or Bliss (Μακαρία). In like manner, Logos and Zoe wishing to give thanks to their progenitors Nous and Aletheia, put forth another set, this time an imperfect number, or twelve aeons, also arranged in syzygies and called Paraclete (Παράκλητος) and Faith (Πίστις), Fatherly (Πατρικὸς) and Hope (Ἐλπίς), Motherly (Μητρικὸς) and Love (Ἀγάπη), Ever-Thinking (Ἀείνους[[361]]) and Comprehension (Σύνεσις), Of the Church (Ἐκκλησιαστικὸς) and Blessedness (Μακαριότης), Longed-for (Θελητὸς) and Wisdom (Σοφία). It was through this last, as through her namesake in the system of the Ophites, that the Divine came to mingle with Matter.
Before coming to this, however, it will be well to say something here about the ideas that seem to lie behind the names of this series of aeons numbering, with the first six, twenty-eight in all, which thus made up what was known as the Pleroma or Fulness of the Godhead. If we arrange them in three families or groups according to their parentage, thus:
Children of Bythos (either alone or with Sige).
Nous—Aletheia.
Children of Nous and Aletheia.
Logos—Zoe.
Bythios—Mixis.