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| Chapter VIII.—How the Valentinians pervert the Scriptures to support their own pious opinions.
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Chapter VIII.—How the Valentinians
pervert the Scriptures to support their own pious opinions.
1. Such,
then, is their system, which neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord
taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which they boast that beyond
all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from
other sources than the Scriptures;2750
| 2750 Literally, “reading from things
unwritten.” | and, to use a common proverb, they strive
to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavour to adapt with an air of
probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord,
the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that
their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so,
however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures,
and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By
transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing
out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in
adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions. Their manner of
acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been
constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then
take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems,
and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a
fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and
declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the
skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been
admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the
king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the
shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the
ignorant who had no conception what a king’s form was like, and
persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the
beautiful image of the king. In like manner do these persons patch
together old wives’ fables, and then endeavour, by violently
drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions, and
parables whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless
fictions. We have already stated how far they proceed in this way with
respect to the interior of the Pleroma.
2. Then, again, as to those things outside of their
Pleroma, the following are some specimens of what they attempt to
accommodate out of the Scriptures to their opinions. They affirm that
the Lord came in the last times of the world to endure
suffering, for this end, that He might indicate the passion which
occurred to the last of the Æons, and might by His own end announce the
cessation of that disturbance which had risen among the Æons. They
maintain, further, that that girl of twelve years old, the daughter of
the ruler of the synagogue,2751
to whom
the Lord approached and raised her from the dead, was a type of Achamoth,
to whom their Christ, by extending himself, imparted shape, and whom he
led anew to the perception of that light which had forsaken her. And that
the Saviour appeared to her when she lay outside of the Pleroma as a kind
of abortion, they affirm Paul to have declared in his Epistle to the
Corinthians [in these words], “And last of all, He appeared to me
also, as to one born out of due time.”2752
Again, the coming of the Saviour with His attendants to Achamoth
is declared in like manner by him in the same Epistle, when he says,
“A woman ought to have a veil upon her head, because of the
angels.”2753
| 2753
1 Cor. xi. 10. Irenæus here reads κάλυμμα,
veil, instead of ἐξουσίαν,
power, as in the received text. [An interesting fact, as it
betokens an old gloss, which may have slipped into the text of some
ancient mss.] |
Now, that Achamoth, when the Saviour came to her, drew a veil over
herself through modesty, Moses rendered manifest when he put a veil upon
his face. Then, also, they say that the passions which she endured were
indicated by the Lord upon the cross. Thus, when He said, “My God,
my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?”2754
He
simply showed that Sophia was deserted by the light, and was restrained
by Horos from making any advance forward. Her anguish, again, was
indicated when He said, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto
death;”2755
her fear by the words,
“Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me;”2756
and her perplexity, too, when He said,
“And what I shall say, I know not.”2757
| 2757 John xii. 27. The
Valentinians seem, for their own purposes, to have added οὐκ οἶδα to this text.
|
3. And they teach that He pointed out the three kinds
of men as follows: the material, when He said to him that asked
Him, “Shall I follow Thee?”2758
“The Son of man hath not where to lay His head;”—
the
animal, when He said to him that declared, “I will follow
Thee, but suffer me first to bid them farewell that are in my
house,” “No man, putting his hand to the plough, and looking
back, is fit for the kingdom of heaven”2759
(for this man they declare to be of the intermediate class, even
as they do that other who, though he professed to have wrought a large
amount of righteousness, yet refused to follow Him, and was so overcome
by [the love of] riches, as never to reach perfection)—this one
it pleases them to place in the animal class;—the
spiritual, again, when He said, “Let the dead bury their
dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God,”2760
and when He said to Zaccheus the publican, “Make haste, and
come down, for to-day I must abide in thine house”2761
—for these they declared to have belonged to the spiritual
class. Also the parable of the leaven which the woman is described as
having hid in three measures of meal, they declare to make manifest the
three classes. For, according to their teaching, the woman represented
Sophia; the three measures of meal, the three kinds of men—
spiritual, animal, and material; while the leaven denoted the Saviour
Himself. Paul, too, very plainly set forth the material, animal, and
spiritual, saying in one place, “As is the earthy, such are they
also that are earthy;”2762
and in
another place, “But the animal man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit;”2763
and again: “He that
is spiritual judgeth all things.”2764
And
this, “The animal man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit,” they affirm to have been spoken concerning the Demiurge,
who, as being animal, knew neither his mother who was spiritual, nor her
seed, nor the Æons in the Pleroma. And that the Saviour received
first-fruits of those whom He was to save, Paul declared when he said,
“And if the first-fruits be holy, the lump is also
holy,”2765
teaching that the
expression “first-fruits” denoted that which is spiritual,
but that “the lump” meant us, that is, the animal Church, the
lump of which they say He assumed, and blended it with Himself, inasmuch
as He is “the leaven.”
4. Moreover, that Achamoth wandered beyond the Pleroma,
and received form from Christ, and was sought after by the Saviour, they
declare that He indicated when He said, that He had come after that sheep
which was gone astray.2766
For they explain the
wandering sheep to mean their mother, by whom they represent the Church
as having been sown. The wandering itself denotes her stay outside of the
Pleroma in a state of varied passion, from which they maintain that
matter derived its origin. The woman, again, who sweeps the house and
finds the piece of money, they declare to denote the Sophia above, who,
having lost her enthymesis, afterwards recovered it, on all things
being purified by the advent of the Saviour. Wherefore this
substance also, according to them, was reinstated in Pleroma. They say,
too, that Simeon, “who took Christ into his arms, and gave thanks
to God, and said, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,
according to Thy word,”2767
was a type
of the Demiurge, who, on the arrival of the Saviour, learned his own
change of place, and gave thanks to Bythus. They also assert that by
Anna, who is spoken of in the gospel2768
as a
prophetess, and who, after living seven years with her husband, passed
all the rest of her life in widowhood until she saw the Saviour, and
recognised Him, and spoke of Him to all, was most plainly indicated
Achamoth, who, having for a little while looked upon the Saviour with His
associates, and dwelling all the rest of the time in the intermediate
place, waited for Him till He should come again, and restore her to her
proper consort. Her name, too, was indicated by the Saviour, when He
said, “Yet wisdom is justified by her children.”2769
This, too, was done by Paul in these words,
“But we speak wisdom among them that are perfect.”2770
They declare also that Paul has referred to the
conjunctions within the Pleroma, showing them forth by means of one; for,
when writing of the conjugal union in this life, he expressed himself
thus: “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and
the Church.”2771
5. Further, they teach that
John, the disciple of the Lord, indicated the first Ogdoad, expressing
themselves in these words: John, the disciple of the Lord, wishing to set
forth the origin of all things, so as to explain how the Father produced
the whole, lays down a certain principle,—that, namely, which was
first-begotten by God, which Being he has termed both the only-begotten
Son and God, in whom the Father, after a seminal manner, brought forth
all things. By him the Word was produced, and in him the whole substance
of the Æons, to which the Word himself afterwards imparted form. Since,
therefore, he treats of the first origin of things, he rightly proceeds
in his teaching from the beginning, that is, from God and the Word. And
he expresses himself thus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning
with God.”2772
Having first of all
distinguished these three—God, the Beginning, and the Word
—he again unites them, that he may exhibit the production of each
of them, that is, of the Son and of the Word, and may at the same time
show their union with one another, and with the Father. For “the
beginning” is in the Father, and of the Father, while “the
Word” is in the beginning, and of the beginning. Very properly,
then, did he say, “In the beginning was the Word,” for He was
in the Son; “and the Word was with God,” for He was the
beginning; “and the Word was God,” of course, for that which
is begotten of God is God. “The same was in the beginning with
God”—this clause discloses the order of production.
“All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing
made;”2773
for the Word was the author
of form and beginning to all the Æons that came into existence after
Him. But “what was made in Him,” says John, “is
life.”2774
| 2774
John i. 3, 4. The punctuation here followed is
different from that commonly adopted, but is found in many of the
Fathers, and in some of the most ancient mss. | Here again he
indicated conjunction; for all things, he said, were made by Him,
but in Him was life. This, then, which is in Him, is more closely
connected with Him than those things which were simply made by Him, for
it exists along with Him, and is developed by Him. When, again, he adds,
“And the life was the light of men,” while thus mentioning
Anthropos, he indicated also Ecclesia by that one expression, in order
that, by using only one name, he might disclose their fellowship with one
another, in virtue of their conjunction. For Anthropos and Ecclesia
spring from Logos and Zoe. Moreover, he styled life (Zoe) the light of
men, because they are enlightened by her, that is, formed and made
manifest. This also Paul declares in these words: “For whatsoever
doth make manifest is light.”2775
Since,
therefore, Zoe manifested and begat both Anthropos and Ecclesia, she is
termed their light. Thus, then, did John by these words reveal both other
things and the second Tetrad, Logos and Zoe, Anthropos and Ecclesia. And
still further, he also indicated the first Tetrad. For, in discoursing of
the Saviour and declaring that all things beyond the Pleroma received
form from Him, he says that He is the fruit of the entire Pleroma. For he
styles Him a “light which shineth in darkness, and which was not
comprehended”2776
by it, inasmuch as, when He
imparted form to all those things which had their origin from passion, He
was not known by it.2777
| 2777
ὑπ’ αὐτῆς, occurring
twice, is rendered both times in the old Latin version, “ab
eis.” The reference is to σκοτία,
darkness, i.e., all those not belonging to the spiritual seed.
| He also styles Him Son, and Aletheia, and Zoe, and the
“Word made flesh, whose glory,” he says, “we beheld;
and His glory was as that of the Only-begotten (given to Him by the
Father), full of grace and truth.”2778
(But
what John really does
say is this: “And the Word was
made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of
the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”2779
| 2779 This is parenthetically
inserted by the author, to show the misquotation of Scripture by these
heretics. | ) Thus, then, does he [according to them] distinctly
set forth the first Tetrad, when he speaks of the Father, and Charis, and
Monogenes, and Aletheia. In this way, too, does John tell of the first
Ogdoad, and that which is the mother of all the Æons. For he mentions
the Father, and Charis, and Monogenes, and Aletheia, and Logos, and Zoe,
and Anthropos, and Ecclesia. Such are the views of Ptolemæus.2780
| 2780 These words are wanting in
the Greek, but are inserted in the old Latin version. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
