Those of whom I have hitherto spoken have been acknowledged disciples, more or less directly, of Simon Magus. But there were others, who owned no connexion with him, and yet taught a system more or less like his. The Barbeliots, for instance, imagined one Supreme Being, and with him another Being of the female sex, but remaining always a virgin, and never growing old, whom they call Barbelo, Ennœa (Thought), &c.
They say that he willed to manifest himself to her, and that she, coming into his presence, called for Foreknowledge, and she came forth. At their [pg 283] request again Incorruption was produced, and then Life Eternal. After this Barbelo herself produced a light like to herself, which the Father saw and anointed with his goodness, and thus made it the Christ. At his request Understanding was sent him as a helpmate, and afterwards the Father added the Word: upon which there were made Pairs, by the union of Thought and the Word, Incorruption and the Christ, Life Eternal and the Will of the Father, Understanding and Foreknowledge; all of whom magnified the Great Light and Barbelo609.
From Thought and the Word was then sent forth the Self-existent and the Truth; from the Christ and Incorruption, four Lights to attend upon the Self-existent; and from Will and Life Eternal, four Beings to wait upon these Lights, namely, Grace, Will, Comprehension (Σύνεσις), and Prudence. These were joined respectively to the four Lights, and made other four Pairs610.
These two quaternions being settled, the Self-existent creates a man, in a state of perfection, named the Unconquered, and in union with him Knowledge, likewise perfect. From these were manifested the Mother, the Father, and the Son, and they jointly produced the tree of knowledge, [pg 284] and their enjoyment consists in celebrating the praises of the Great Being611.
Lastly, Charis, the attendant upon Harmogenes612, produces the Holy Spirit, called likewise Wisdom and Prunicus. She, seeing herself unmated, stretched herself forth in every direction, and even towards the nether parts, seeking her mate; and in the effort brought forth a production in which appeared presumption and ignorance; which production became the Prime Governor, and Maker of this world, and Creator of Powers and Angels, and being paired with Presumption, he begot malice, and emulation, and jealousy, and fury, and desire: upon which his mother, being grieved, departed and left him alone; whence he imagines that there is none but he, and utters that sentiment by the mouths of the prophets613.
There was another more intricate and complete hypothesis, which owned no master, but took its denomination variously from two different marked [pg 285] portions of it, which will be noticed in their place614.
It supposed, like most of its predecessors, an Original, called the First Light, the Father of all, and the First Man; and his Thought, issuing from him, and thence called the Son of Man. Next to them came the Holy Spirit, the first woman, which hovered over the elements, water, darkness, the abyss and chaos. From the Father and Son, impregnating the Spirit, came the Christ, the third man615. By this impregnation, however, she was filled so superabundantly, that she produced not only the Christ on the right hand, but also another Being, imbued likewise with light, called Wisdom and Prunicus, a hermaphrodite. Upon this the Christ was united with the first Three, and with them formed the true holy Church616; whilst Wisdom descended upon the waters, and moved them to their lowest depths, and took from them a material body, which had nearly overpowered her; but making a great effort, by the aid of the supernal light within her, she rose aloft, and from her body, by a voluntary expansion, created the heavens617.
She, moreover, had a son, who knew not his mother, but sent forth from the waters a son of his [pg 286] own, and he another, and so on to the seventh, who, with their mother formed an ogdoad618; the first of whom was named Jaldabaoth, the second Jao, the third Great Sabaoth, the fourth Adonai, the fifth Eloeus (or Elohei), the sixth Horeus, the seventh Astaphæus. All these for some space of time sat harmoniously in heaven, in due subordination one to the other: but Jaldabaoth, confident in having been the author of the others, took upon him to create angels and archangels, and excellencies, and powers and dominions; envious at which, his posterity rebelled against him: upon which he fixed his desires upon the unformed matter, and from it produced a son in the form of a serpent, called Understanding, (from whom these people derived their name of Ophites619,) and subsequently Spirit, Soul, and all earthly things, from which sprang forgetfulness, malice, emulation, jealousy, and death620.
Jaldabaoth, blindly exulting in his success, exclaimed, I am Father and God, and besides me there is no other; but his mother astonished him and his posterity, by exclaiming, Lie not, Jaldabaoth, for there is above thee the First Man, the Father of all, and Man the Son of Man. To call off their attention [pg 287] from this intelligence, he invited them to make man in their own image. This idea their mother secretly encouraged, that they might empty themselves of their celestial virtue. Their production, however, although immense in size and length, lay sprawling on the ground, until they brought it to their father, who, to the great satisfaction of Wisdom, breathed into it the breath of life, and thereby emptied himself of his virtue621. This newly-created being, therefore, was possessed of understanding and desire, and deserting his Creators, gave thanks to the First Man622.
Jaldabaoth upon this being jealous of him, endeavoured to re-extract the celestial virtue from him, by creating woman from his desire; but Prunicus, having invisibly taken charge of her, extracted the virtue from her, and the posterity of Jaldabaoth, admiring her beauty, called her Eve, and begot from her angels. The machinations of Prunicus did not end here, for she employed Understanding, the son of Jaldabaoth, who was in the form of a serpent, to seduce the man and woman into disobedience to the commands of Jaldabaoth, by eating the forbidden fruit623, by which means they became acquainted with [pg 288] the Supreme Virtue, and forsook their Creators624. Upon this they were ejected from paradise, and being deprived by Prunicus of the divine light they had, that nothing divine might be subjected to curse, they were cast out into this world, together with the serpent, who from the earthly angels begat seven sons, in imitation of Jaldabaoth and his six descendants. These with their parent are always opposing the welfare of the human race625.
Before Adam and Eve fell they had bright and spiritual bodies; but afterwards their bodies became opaque and heavy, and their souls relaxed and weak; until Prunicus having pity on them, restored to them the savour of the heavenly light, by which means they became aware of their degraded condition. Knowing, however, that the debasement was only temporary, they complied with their condition, ate and drank, and begat Cain and Abel, of whom Cain, being seized on by the serpent, fell into folly and presumption, envy and murder. After this, by the interposition of Prunicus, they begat Seth and Norea, from whom mankind sprung626, and were seduced by the serpent and his children into every evil; although Prunicus constantly opposed them, and [pg 289] saved the celestial light627. So likewise when Jaldabaoth, enraged at not being worshipped by mankind, sent the flood upon them, Wisdom saved Noah and his family, for the sake of the tincture of light which was in them. Abraham, however, and the Jews were the chosen people of Jaldabaoth, who with his six descendants chose agents from among them, each for himself, to glorify him as God628. Moses, therefore, Joshua, Amos, and Habakkuk, were the prophets of Jaldabaoth; Samuel, Nathan, Jonah, and Micah of Jao; Elijah, Joel, and Zachariah of Sabaoth; Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Daniel of Adonai; Tobias and Haggai of Elohei; Micah and Nahum of Horeus; Ezra and Zephaniah of Astaphæus629.
But here again Wisdom, or Prunicus, interfered, and turned these prophets into her own instruments, causing them to speak of the Supreme Being, and of the Christ above, who was to descend upon earth. These announcements from the mouth of their own prophets so alarmed the Princes, the posterity of Jaldabaoth, that they left her at liberty to cause him, not knowing what he did, to send forth two men, one, John the Baptist, the other, Jesus630. For having found no rest below, she had returned in penitence to her mother, the Holy Spirit, the first [pg 290] woman, and called upon her for help. Whereupon the Holy Spirit petitioned the Supreme Father that the Christ might descend to her aid: of which, when she was aware, she inspired the prophets to speak; and likewise prepared John to announce his coming, and Jesus by means of her son Jaldabaoth, the God of this world, to be his receptacle upon earth631.
The Christ therefore descended through the seven heavens632, taking upon him the likeness of their children, and drew out from them their virtue, so that all the supernal light with which they were imbued returned to him; and having arrived in this world united himself to Wisdom, his sister, and in union with her descended upon Jesus, who thenceforward begun to work miracles. Upon this Jaldabaoth and his posterity united to kill him; whereupon the Christ and Wisdom left him, and returned to the upper sphere; not however deserting him altogether; for the Christ sent down upon him a power by which he rose again, clothed with a spiritual body633. But after this, although he remained on earth eighteen months, he wrought no miracle, (as neither did he before his baptism,) being forsaken by the Christ and Wisdom. Yet he was in a certain [pg 291] degree inspired, and taught these things to a few of his disciples634.
At the end of eighteen months he was taken up into heaven, where the Christ placed him635 on the right hand of his father Jaldabaoth, though without his knowledge, where his business is to receive the souls of those who know these doctrines, viz. those who are imbued with the heavenly light. By this means Jaldabaoth will by degrees lose the whole of that which he originally possessed, and be left entirely earthly and material; whilst the whole of the light will be withdrawn from the world and its creators; and then will be the consummation of all things 636.
But none of the Gnostic leaders, excepting perhaps Marcion, obtained so high a pre-eminence as Valentinus, who drew out a kind of eclectic system, and thus became the founder of a new school: at [pg 292] least Irenæus represents the matter so completely in this light, that he classes all the others together by the general name of Gnostics637, in contradistinction to Valentinus and his school.
Report638 makes him an Ægyptian by birth, and Tertullian expressly informs us639 that he was originally a Christian; and indeed a person of such eminence in the Church that he aspired to the office of Bishop. But his mind was tinged with the Platonism640 which was so prevalent in Alexandria, the place of his education: and it did not happen to him as to Justin and Clement, in whom the truth moulded their philosophical notions, and clad them in a Christian garb; for being disappointed in the object of his ambition, he showed how wisely the Church had acted in rejecting him, by giving himself thenceforth, like Arius, to the propagation of error. As he could not be a bishop, he would be a father of heresy.
He took for his foundation, as it would seem641, the [pg 293] difficulty of explaining the origin of evil consistently with holding the perfection of God. He was thence led to make matter co-eval with the Creator, and to declare that all the defects of created things arise from that portion of matter which he left untouched in the work of creation, as unfit for his use. This idea he doubtless borrowed from the Platonic philosophy: but how from this he passed into the absurdities of Gnosticism we are not informed. We only learn from Irenæus that he fashioned them into a new system. It is curious, however, that he is said by his followers to have derived his notions from a disciple of St. Paul642, and that he endeavoured to represent them as perfectly consistent with the Scriptures643. He had attained such a degree of notoriety before the year 142, in which Justin Martyr offered his First Apology to Antoninus Pius, that Justin therein speaks of having written that book against all the heresies644, to which Tertullian is believed to refer when he mentions Justin amongst those who had written against Valentinus645. And this agrees with what Irenæus says646, that he came to Rome in [pg 294] the time of Hyginus, flourished under Pius, and continued to the time of Anicetus. For whether we take the Chronology of Eusebius647, who places his coming to Rome in the year 141, or third of Antoninus, or that of Eutychius, favoured by Bishop Pearson648 who makes Hyginus contemporary with Adrian, this would equally agree with Justin having already written against him in 142: for he made himself known in his own country as an opposer of the truth before he came to Rome649. Whatever may be thought of the precise year at which he came to that city, he remained there fifteen or twenty years, for he continued to the episcopate of Anicetus, and retained some character for piety and correctness of faith up to that period650. Thenceforward, however, he cast off all such pretensions, and retiring to Cyprus, taught without disguise all the impieties his system naturally led to651.
It has so happened that Irenæus did not write directly against him, but against his followers: and as every disciple held himself capable of improving upon the system of his instructor, that which the Bishop of Lyons gives in full detail differs in some particulars from that taught by Valentinus himself. [pg 295] It was in fact more nearly that of Ptolemy, his most noted follower652: but still Ptolemy had some peculiarities of his own653. Yet Irenæus has preserved to us the leading features of the scheme as taught by Valentinus, and by their help, and that of a fragment preserved by Epiphanius654, which corresponds with what Irenæus has told us, (although Bishop Pearson rightly contends that it is not the work of the heretical leader himself). I will endeavour to place it before my readers.
Valentinus then taught, according to Irenæus, that all things sprung from one primeval pair, the Ineffable and Silence655: the latter being according to the fragment the Thought of the former or his Grace, but called Silence more correctly, because she accomplished every thing by simple desire without utterance. From these, according to Valentinus, sprung another pair, the Father656 and the Truth: the former of whom the fragment makes to emanate from the Unbegotten Original and Silence, by her [pg 296] desire; the latter from herself and the Father, by some mysterious union of the lights from each; so that their offspring was a true image of herself and thence derived her name. Truth, therefore, by a like mysterious union with her Father, produces a tetrad of two pairs, the Word and the Life, Man and the Church. Subsequently the Holy Spirit was sent forth either by the Truth or by the Church, (for upon that point the Old Translator of Irenæus and Epiphanius differ,) to examine the Æons, and to make them fruitful in the produce of truth657.
So far Irenæus and the fragment correspond, excepting that the latter places Man and the Church first658: but from this point there appears nothing more in common, and as henceforth there is a general coincidence between Valentinus and his followers, I shall give the scheme as it appears in the first book of Irenæus, mentioning the variations where they occur.
It may be however proper to notice this radical difference between the heresiarch and his disciples, that he considered all these Æons, as they were called, or Eternal Essences, as merely feelings, affections, and motions of the one unseen, infinite [pg 297] First Cause, whereas they regarded them as so many personal beings659.
The last mentioned tetrad then, knowing themselves to have been sent forth to the glory of the unbegotten Father, desired to glorify him by their own act. Wherefore the Word and the Truth sent forth ten Æons, called the Profound and Mixture, the Ever-youthful and Union, the Self-existent and Pleasure, the Immoveable and Commixture, the Only-begotten and the Blessed: whilst Man and the Church sent forth twelve, called the Paraclete and Faith, the Paternal and Hope, the Maternal and Charity, Aïnus (the Eternal Mind, or as it is in the Latin Æons, or Praise) and Comprehension, the Ecclesiastical and Blessedness, the Desired and Wisdom660.
These thirty Æons, consisting of twelve, and ten, and eight, composed what they called the Fulness661: and Valentinus differed from his followers in placing a barrier between the First Cause and the others662; [pg 298] which probably is to be explained by his saying that they were not, like him, real beings, but merely qualities or emanations. Irenæus was probably the first person who published their names: for the Valentinians prided themselves on their being a secret, hidden from all but the initiated. The names, however, were differently stated by later Valentinians663, and were in all probability altered on set purpose whenever they became known.
Of these thirty, the Only-begotten or Father alone knew the nature of the Great Father of all: the rest desired to know their origin, but knew him not: and although the Only-begotten was desirous of revealing him to them, Silence restrained him664. A new state of things, however, arose from the restlessness of the last of the Æons, namely Wisdom; who, under the pretext of affection for the unknown First Parent, but in reality through venturesome curiosity, reached forth into the fathomless height and depth, in a state of extreme excitement and anxiety, and would have been reabsorbed into the original substance, but for the interposition of a power called the Barrier, which prevented her farther progress, and brought her back to herself; but at the same time kept up a perpetual separation between her and the Father, to which she originally belonged665.
[pg 299]Valentinus then taught that Wisdom, being thus separated from Theletos, became the mother of the Christ, producing him from the remembrance of the better things or superior beings she had left, but with a kind of shadow attached to him, derived from her fallen condition; and by that means emptied herself of her spiritual substance. Whereupon he, having become possessed of it, cut off from him the shadow, and returned aloft into the Fulness, leaving his mother under the shadow he rejected. In this still more degraded condition, Valentinus makes her to have produced a son, who became the Creator, and whom he regards as complete ruler of all things subordinate to him666.
His followers, however, improved, as they thought, upon this part of his scheme. They personified the longing of Wisdom, making it her offspring, comprising in it all the feelings of admiration and wonder, of sorrow, and fear, and perplexity, under which she had laboured667. They represent the Barrier personally, as sent down at the intercession of the Word or Only-begotten, and give him the appellations of the Stake or Cross, the Redeemer, the Limiter, the Reconciler668. They affirm that by his agency Wisdom was freed from the consequences of her vain search after her original, and restored to [pg 300] her spouse and to the Fulness, whilst her longing was separated from the Fulness669.
At this crisis, to prevent another commotion amongst the Æons, by the will of the Supreme Father, the Mind or Only-begotten produced another pair, the Christ and the Holy Spirit; the former of whom gave them fully to understand that it was impossible to comprehend the First Cause, but that what could be comprehended of him was revealed in the Only-begotten, whom he taught them to contemplate670; whilst the latter put them all upon an equality with each other, and made them all, according to their sex, Minds, Words, Men, and Christs, or Truths, Lives, Churches, and Spirits. By this means they were reduced to a state of repose, and betook themselves to magnify the Great First Father. In token whereof they all united to produce one perfect being, Jesus, called also the Saviour, the Christ, the Word, and the All, together with angels his attendants671.
But we must return to the personified Longing of Wisdom, whom we shall have to know henceforth under the name of Achamoth672, which is merely a [pg 301] corruption of the Hebrew word for wisdom, חכמות, Chokmoth, or the same word in some kindred dialect, omitting the aspirate ח. She, it must be remembered, was separated from the Celestial Fulness by Ὅρος, the personal Barrier, the Σταυρὸς or Stake. But the Christ took pity on her, and reaching forth over the Barrier, (διὰ τοῦ Σταυροῦ ἐπεκταθεὶς, a strange perversion and accommodation of evangelical expressions to their system,) gave her a natural life, and left with her a savour of immortality, but did not communicate to her that knowledge, which in their system is the principle of spiritual life. What he did leave, however, worked its effect. It led her to seek after him who had deposited it in her, and being restrained by the Barrier, she sustained various feelings, sorrow, and fear, and consternation, all accompanied by ignorance of all above her, and a perpetual turning towards him who had given her life, and pleasure in thinking of the glimpse of light which had been permitted to her673. From the tumult within her sprung various productions; being however in the whole, the Creator of the world and all created things, of which we shall see more hereafter674.
She had scarcely recovered from this state of perturbation, when the Christ sent down to her the [pg 302] Paraclete; not the offspring of Man and the Church, but that perfect being produced by the Æons conjointly, called likewise the Saviour675, having power given him over all things below, and accompanied by his angels. He separated her from all the products of her perturbation, and endued her with that knowledge which before she possessed not. He likewise separated her productions definitely into two species of substance, one radically bad, the other capable of being either good or evil; the one material, the other animate; to which she speedily added another, spiritual in its nature, conceived from joyful contemplation of the angel-attendants of the Saviour676.
From this period she begins to be herself an active fashioner of her productions. With the spiritual seed she could not meddle, because it was equal to herself: but from the animate677 substance she first formed the actual Creator of all earthly things, called likewise God the Father, the Saviour, the King of [pg 303] all, the Mother's Father, the Fatherless678. By him she, or rather the Saviour through her, fashioned all things here below, from the two substances, animate and material: first the seven heavens, who are also seven angels679, then the earth and man680, and all the elements and creatures, and lastly the spirits of wickedness, of whom the prince of this world was the chief681. Of these man was a compound of the animate and the material682. All these the Creator made, not knowing what he did; and so his mother Achamoth, without his knowledge, infused into the man which he had made, that spiritual seed of which I have before spoken683, which is the Church, (or rather the Calling, ἐκκλησία,) an image of the Ecclesia above684.
It is not however to be supposed that all men have a share of this seed of election. It is only partially possessed. Those who have it not may be saved by faith and good works, those who have it are necessarily saved, and are incapable of being corrupted by any action or course of life. To the former class belong Churchmen, (Christians) to the latter [pg 304] Gnostics685. The natural consequences followed, such as I have detailed before, with more or less of disguise, according to the character or circumstances of the professors of such doctrines. Some did openly whatever they felt inclined to, others went more warily to work: but the result every where was the same, the free indulgence of the sensual passions, with all their lamentable consequences; and those so much the more fatal, as they were accompanied by a profession of superior knowledge and purity686.
We have mentioned one Jesus already: but they likewise professed to believe in the Jesus of the Gospel. They taught that the Creator produced a son, unspiritual like himself, and that he was sent into the world by the Virgin Mary, as a mere vehicle, such as a water-pipe is to water; that he was687 clad in a body different from that of others; that when he was baptized, the Jesus before mentioned descended upon him in the form of a dove; and that he was likewise impregnated by Achamoth with the spiritual seed. Of these four portions of his nature [pg 305] only the two former suffered; the Saviour having quitted him when he was delivered up to Pilate688.
The winding up of this state of things is to take place when all the spiritual seed has become perfect in knowledge. Then Achamoth and the spiritual portion of every Gnostic will be elevated into the Fulness: the Creator, the animal souls of the Gnostics, with the souls of those who have been saved by faith and good works, will be raised to the intermediate heaven; and then the hidden fire will burst forth from this lower world and consume those souls which have not attained to salvation together with all material things, and with them will be reduced to nothing689.
The most remarkable feature in the scheme of Valentinus was his treatment of the Scriptures. He did not, like some of his predecessors, speak with contempt of them, as having proceeded from an imperfect Being. He did not like others reject the whole New Testament, as a figment of the “natural men,” as they called the orthodox, and substitute apocryphal writings in their place: nor did he again, like others, reject such portions of the Scriptures as militated strongly against their views. He professed to receive the whole of the Gospels and Apostolical [pg 306] writings, but he accommodated the Scripture to his views. Tertullian indeed690 uses very different terms; viz. that he did not accommodate the Scripture to his views, but his views to the Scripture. It was certainly his endeavour to appear so to do; and accordingly he adopted Scripture language to a very great extent, and no doubt professed, like all modern teachers of false doctrine, to find all his doctrine in the Scripture: so that I believe we have only one instance of his reading a passage differently from the Church691. Indeed he reproached the orthodox for not having preserved the true meaning: or rather looked down upon them as being naturally incapable of receiving it; being not spiritual, but natural and carnal.
It was, no doubt, in this way that he kept up that character for faith and piety, of which Epiphanius speaks, and to which Tertullian alludes692. Irenæus has given us numerous instances in which he and his followers quoted the Scriptures as supporting their own doctrine693: but they will be found to be either forced accommodations of numbers and names, or violent perversions of the letter of Scripture, or [pg 307] mystical interpretations put upon it in such a way as that it may almost be made to mean anything. The success of such interpretations was of course aided by the equally unnatural accommodations of Scripture customary with the orthodox, at least those of the Alexandrian school. There are, likewise, some fragments of his preserved by Clement of Alexandria694, which have the same tone as the system generally; but one of these695, in which he compares the heart occupied by divers evil passions to an inn or caravanserai defiled by travellers, appears at first sight so unobjectionable, that, out of the connection in which it stands, one should hardly suspect any evil meaning. It is however intended to teach the Gnostic tenet, that the heart of the spiritual man is no more a partaker of the evil wrought in it by evil spirits, than a caravanserai in the nuisances committed by every wanton traveller. This is evidently another, and a less offensive way of stating that to the spiritual mind no passion can communicate any permanent pollution, and that the elect are not to be called to account for what they fall into in this world: and its inoffensiveness at first sight is no bad illustration of the habit Irenæus charges them with of teaching their heresies by stealth696.