(ii) Peratæ.
The theology of the second Ophite sect, the Peratæ, as described by Hippolytus, is a strange phenomenon. |Their theology|They divided the universe into three regions, the uncreate, the self-create, and the created. Again the middle region may be said to correspond roughly to the Platonic kingdom of ideas. But their conception of deity is entirely their own. They postulate three of every being; three Gods, three Words, three Minds (i.e. as we may suppose three Spirits), three Men. Thus there is a God for each region, just as there is a Man. In full accordance with this perverse and abnormal theology is their application of St Paul’s language. |and corresponding application of πλήρωμα.|Their Christ has three natures, belonging to these three kingdoms respectively; and this completeness of His being is implied by St Paul in Col. i. 19, ii. 9, which passages are combined in their loose quotation or paraphrase, ‘All the pleroma was pleased to dwell in him bodily, and there is in him all the godhead’, i.e. (as Hippolytus adds in explanation) ‘of this their triple division (τῆς οὕτω διῃρημένης τρίαδος)’[[584]]. This application is altogether arbitrary, having no relation whatever to the theological meaning of the term in St Paul. It is also an entire departure from the conception of the Cerinthians, Valentinians, and Naassenes, in which this meaning, however obscured, was not altogether lost. These three heresies took a horizontal section of the universe, so to speak, and applied the term as coextensive with the supramundane stratum. The Peratæ on the other hand divided it vertically, and the pleroma, in their interpretation of the text, denoted the whole extent of this vertical section. There is nothing in common between the two applications beyond the fundamental meaning of the word, ‘completeness, totality’.
Pistis Sophia.
The extant Gnostic work, called Pistis Sophia, was attributed at one time on insufficient grounds to Valentinus. It appears however to exhibit a late development of Ophitism[[585]], far more Christian and less heathen in its character than those already considered. In this work the word pleroma occurs with tolerable frequency; but its meaning is not easily fixed. |Frequent use of the term.|Early in the treatise it is said that the disciples supposed a certain ‘mystery’, of which Jesus spoke, to be ‘the end of all the ends’ and ‘the head (κεφαλήν) of the Universe’ and ‘the whole pleroma’[[586]]. Here we seem to have an allusion to the Platonic kingdom of ideas, i.e. of intelligible being, of absolute truth, as reproduced in the Valentinian pleroma. And the word is used sometimes in connexion with the completeness of revelation or the perfection of knowledge. Thus our Lord is represented as saying to His disciples, ‘I will tell you the whole mystery and the whole pleroma, and I will conceal nothing from you from this hour; and in perfection will I perfect you in every pleroma and in every perfection and in every mystery, which things are the perfection of all the perfections and the pleroma of all the pleromas’[[587]]. Elsewhere however Mary, to whom Jesus is represented as making some of his chief revelations, is thus addressed by Him; ‘Blessed art thou above (παρὰ) all women that are on the earth, for thou shalt be pleroma of all the pleromas and perfection of all the perfections’[[588]], where the word must be used in a more general sense.
Monoimus the Arabian.
One heresy still remains to be noticed in connexion with this word. Hippolytus has preserved an account of the teaching of Monoimus the Arabian, of whom previously to the discovery of this father’s treatise we knew little more than the name. In this strange form of heresy the absolute first principle is the uncreate, imperishable, eternal Man. I need not stop to enquire what this statement means. It is sufficient for the present purpose to add that this eternal Man is symbolized by the letter Ι, the ‘one iota’, the ‘one tittle’ of the Gospel[[589]]; and this Ι, as representing the number ten, includes in itself all the units from one to nine. ‘This’, added Monoimus, ‘is (meant by) the saying (of scripture) All the pleroma was pleased to dwell upon the Son of Man bodily’[[590]]. Here the original idea of the word as denoting completeness, totality, is still preserved.
The Epistle from Laodicea[[591]].
Different theories classified.
The different opinions respecting the epistle thus designated by St Paul, which have been held in ancient or modern times, will be seen from the following table;
1. An Epistle written by the Laodiceans; to