By Water & Blood

On Valentinus

Valentinus, taking starting points from all these heresies, composed his boundless myths. He established the heresy under Antoninus the first. He supposed first a perfect Aeon, whom he also calls Pre-Beginning, and Forefather, and Depth; and that a certain Thought coexists with him, called Grace and Silence. He said that this one embraced quiet for infinite ages; and that later in time Mind and Truth came to be from both. They name Mind Only-begotten. These two syzygies they name a Pythagorean Tetrad, and call them the root of all things. From Mind and Truth, he says, Word and Life were projected; from Word and Life, Human Being and Church. The four syzygies they call the primordial Ogdoad, and root, and substance of all things. And they say that Depth is the first Aeon, then Word and Life. After the projection of Human Being and Church, they projected ten other Aeons: Deep and Mixture, Unaging and Union, Self-grown and Pleasure, Immovable and Blending, Only-begotten and Blessed. From Human Being and Church twelve other Aeons were projected: Advocate and Faith, Paternal and Hope, Maternal and Love, Ever-thinking and Understanding, Ecclesiastical and Blessedness, Desired and Wisdom.

These thirty Aeons, they say, are unclear to all others, but known to them alone. Then, after mythologizing at great length so as to show the eight and the ten and the twelve and the thirty as honorable numbers, he says that Depth is unapproachable to all who have come from him; and that when Mind had grown and wished both to see him and to make him clear to the others, Silence held him back and hindered the attempt. But the last Aeon, whom they call Wisdom, receiving the same longing, and being unable to attain what was longed for, bore, he says, a formless substance. Grieving over such a birth, she approached the Forefather and reported the passion; and the remaining Aeons also joined her in entreaty, and she herself obtained a certain pardon. The formless offspring they say is Matter, grown from ignorance and grief and fear and bewilderment. Depth, providing that no other Aeon should fall into a similar passion, projects Limit not with a female consort; for each of the other Aeons is yoked with the female. This Limit they also name Cross, and they mythologize other names as well. Through this one, he says, Wisdom too, being purified, was freed from the passion. That Conception which they also named Passion and formless offspring and Matter, Limit cast far away from her.

After these things, he says, the Only-begotten, by the Father’s will, projected for the security and establishment of the Aeons Christ and Holy Spirit; for they say that Christ taught the Aeons that the Father is incomprehensible; and the Holy Spirit granted the Aeons the superior equality according to them. And when the Aeons had obtained these things, they hymned the Forefather, and jointly contributing the finest things that each had, they project through these Jesus, whom they also name Savior, and Christ Word. With him they also projected other angels, so as to be his bodyguards. All these things they name within the Fullness. Outside the Fullness the things said are these: That Conception of that Wisdom, which they also styled formless offspring, they call Achamoth; and having come to be outside the Fullness, she spends her time in a certain shadow and emptiness; and the so-called Christ, taking pity, was stretched out through the Limit also called Cross, and gave her form according to substance; yet he left her deserted of knowledge, and after these things drew the power back into himself; and when she perceived the light that had overtaken her, she ran in search of it, but was hindered by Limit from going forward, when he said “Iao”; for from this, they say, this name also came to be; then, grieving as hindered from going forward, she received grief and fear and perplexity; then there was also added to her a desire for turning. From these passions, they say, this world was constituted: from the turning, the Craftsman and the souls of all; from the other passions, the rest—from her tears the moist substance, from her laughter the light, and from the others the others. For I think it not free from blame to say all the things those men mythologize.

They say that she begged the Christ who had already pitied her to give her a share of the light; and that he accepted the entreaty, yet did not go himself, but sent Jesus, so that in him both the visible and the invisible might be created, and thrones and lordships and divinities, as they themselves say. He arrived, then, with the projected angels, and separated from her the passions that had come upon her, and having separated them he compacted them. And she, separated from the passions, received a desire for the angels, and bore a spiritual offspring similar to the angels, and this ran back upward. From the turning they say the psychic substance came to be, and from this God was formed, and Father, and King of the souls that have the same nature as he—which they call right—and of those of matter, which they name left. For they say that he appropriated all things that are seen. They also call him Mother-Father, and Father, and Craftsman. And why must one recount all the nonsense of the myth-making? For the whole fiction resembles what has already been said.

The Savior who appeared, he says, took from Achamoth the spiritual, and from the Craftsman put on the psychic Christ, and from the Economy clothed himself with a body having psychic substance, made by unspeakable wisdom so as to become tangible and visible and passible. They say that he took up nothing at all material; for nothing from matter admits of salvation. They say that they themselves are saved from knowledge alone; but we from faith and good practice; and that they have no need of works, knowledge being sufficient for salvation. For this reason the most perfect among them do without fear whatever is forbidden by the divine laws. For they also celebrated Greek festivals, and partook of things sacrificed to idols, and are slaves to pleasures, and dare every evil without discrimination.