From Valentinus to the Melchizedekians

Valentinus and his school agree that the source of everything is the Father, but they are driven into saying opposite things about him. Some of them hold that he is alone and can generate by himself; others say that here, as everywhere else, there is no generating without a female. So they give this Father a consort, Silence, and call the Father himself Depth. From this Father and his consort, some of them say, came six emissions — Mind and Truth, Word and Life, Man and Church — and these make up the generating Eight. [a]

The Valentinians hold that these are the first emissions, the ones that took place inside the Boundary, and that they have been named “those within the Fullness.” The second group are “those outside the Fullness,” and the third, “those outside the Boundary.” What is generated in that third group makes up the Deficiency, Achamoth. And he says that whatever has been generated from an Aeon, exists in the Deficiency, and has been put forth beyond the Boundary, is the Creator. Valentinus will not call what is generated in this way the first God; he speaks slightingly both of him and of the things he made.

He says that Christ came down from inside the Fullness to save the spirit that had gone astray. That spirit, the Valentinians say, lives in our inner man, and they say the inner man is saved because that spirit is in him. Valentinus, though, decides that the flesh is not saved. He calls it “a tunic of skin,” the part of a person that perishes. I have set these teachings out in summary form, since in their systems there is a great deal to argue over and a wide variety of opinion. This, then, is how the school of Valentinus chooses to put its case.

Basilides for his part says that there is a God who does not exist, and that this non-existent God has made a non-existent world, formed out of things that are not, by putting down a certain seed — like a mustard seed that holds inside itself stalk, leaves, branches, and fruit. Or the seed is like a peacock’s egg, holding in itself the whole variety of colors. This, the Basilidians say, is the seed of the world, and everything has been produced from it. They hold that it contains everything in itself, including the things that as yet do not exist and that the non-existent God has determined to bring into being. [f]

In that seed, he says, there was a threefold Sonship, in every way of the same substance as the non-existent God, begotten out of things that are not. Of this Sonship, divided in three, one part was fine, one coarse, and one in need of cleansing. As soon as the non-existent God first put the seed down, the fine part burst out, went up, and made its way to the non-existent God; for every nature longs for that God because his beauty is so far beyond it, though different creatures long for him for different reasons. The coarser part stayed behind in the seed. Being a thing that only imitates, it could not soar up, since it was heavier than the fine part; so it fitted itself out with the Holy Spirit, as with wings. The Sonship, once arrayed in this way, does the Spirit a kindness and receives one in return. The third Sonship needed cleansing, so it stayed where it was, in the mass that holds the seeds of everything, and there it does kindness and receives it. Basilides says there is something called “world” and something else called “above the world” — he divides all things into these two — and what lies between them he calls the Holy Spirit at the border, which has in it the scent of the Sonship.

Out of the mass that holds the seeds of everything — the seed of the world — there burst out and was begotten the Great Ruler, the head of the world, an Aeon of beauty and size beyond describing. He raised himself as far as the vault of the sky and supposed that there was nothing above him. And so he became brighter and more powerful than all the Aeons below him — except the Sonship that had been left beneath, which he did not know was wiser than he was. Turning his attention to the making of the world, he first begot for himself a son greater than himself, and he seated this son at his own right hand; and this, the Basilidians say, is the Eight. The Great Ruler then produces the whole creation of the heavens. Another Ruler came up out of the mass of all the seeds, greater than all the Aeons beneath him, except the Sonship that had been left behind, and far inferior to the first Ruler. This second Ruler they call the Seven. He is the maker and creator and controller of everything under him, and he produced for himself a son more sensible and wiser than himself. All of this, they say, exists by the determination of that non-existent God, and there are also worlds and intervals without number.

The Basilidians say that on Jesus, who was born of Mary, came the power of the good news, which came down and lit up both the Son of the Eight and the Son of the Seven. This happened in order to give light, to sort out the different orders of beings, and to cleanse the Sonship that had been left behind to do good to souls and to receive good in return. And they say that they themselves are sons, and are in the world for this reason: that by teaching they may cleanse souls and, together with the Sonship, go up to the Father above, from whom the first Sonship came. They also say that the world lasts until the time when all souls have made their way up there along with the Sonship. These are the opinions Basilides is not ashamed to put forward — and he recounted them as marvels.

Justinus too tried to set up teachings like these, and he puts it this way: there are three unbegotten first principles of the universe, two male and one female. Of the males, one is called “the Good.” He alone is called by that name, and he knows the universe beforehand. The other is the father of everything that has been generated; he has no foreknowledge, and he is unknown and unseen, and he is called Elohim. The female principle has no foreknowledge either; she is quick to anger, and she has two minds and two bodies, as we set out in detail in the earlier books on this man’s system. From the groin up, the Justinians say, she is a virgin; from the groin down she is a snake. Her name is Edem, and also Israel. [i]

He claims that these are the first principles of the universe, and that everything has been produced from them. Elohim, he says, having no foreknowledge, fell into an uncontrolled craving for the half-virgin, and by intercourse with her fathered twelve angels, whose names he gives — the ones already listed. Of these, the ones on the father’s side belong with the father, and the ones on the mother’s side with the mother. Justinus holds that these are the trees of paradise, the ones Moses wrote about in the law, speaking in figures. He says that everything was made by Elohim and Edem: the animals and the rest of the creatures of that kind from the part of her that resembles a beast, and the human being from the parts above the groin. Edem, he supposes, put into the human being the soul, which was her own power, and Elohim put in the spirit.

Justinus says that Elohim, once he had learned where he came from, went up to the Good One and left Edem behind. Edem, enraged at being treated this way, worked up her whole plot against the spirit of Elohim that he had deposited in the human being. That is why, Justinus tells us, the Father sent Baruch with orders for the prophets, so that the spirit of Elohim might be set free; and everyone had been dragged down by Edem. He claims that even Heracles was a prophet, and that Heracles was beaten by Omphale — that is, by Babel; and the Justinians call her Aphrodite.

Afterward, in the days of Herod, Jesus was born the son of Mary and Joseph, and it was to Jesus, he claims, that Baruch had spoken. Edem plotted against him but could not deceive him, and for that reason she had him crucified. The spirit of Jesus went up to the Good One. And the Justinians maintain that the spirits of all who obey these silly, pointless speeches will be saved, and that the body and soul of Edem have been left behind. Foolish Justinus calls this Edem “Earth.”

The Docetae make claims of this kind: that the first God is like the seed of a fig tree; that from it came three Aeons, as the stem, the leaves, and the fruit; and that these put out thirty Aeons, ten each. All of them were joined in tens, differing only in position, since some came before others. Aeons beyond counting, they say, were put out without limit, and all of these were both male and female. These Aeons, they say, formed a plan to go together all at once into a single Aeon, and out of this — out of the Aeon in the middle and out of the Virgin Mary — they begot a Savior of all. This Redeemer was in every way like the first seed of the fig tree, but less than it in one respect: he had been begotten, whereas the seed from which the fig tree springs is unbegotten. So this was the great light of the Aeons — all radiance, taking on no ornament, containing in itself the forms of every living thing. [l]

The Docetae hold that this light, going down into the chaos beneath, gave the things that were produced, and the things that actually exist, their cause, and that as it came down from above it stamped on the chaos below the forms of the everlasting kinds. For the third Aeon, which had tripled itself, saw that everything belonging to it was being dragged down by force into the darkness below; and, knowing both the terror of the darkness and the plainness of the light, he set about making heaven. When he had made firm what lay between, he separated the darkness from the light. Since all the kinds belonging to the third Aeon had been overcome by the darkness, he says, even the shape of this Aeon became a living fire, born out of light. From that source, they claim, the Great Ruler was generated — the one Moses talks about when he says that he is a god of fire and craftsman of the world, who also keeps changing the forms of all the Aeons into bodies.

The Docetae say these are the souls for whose sake the Savior was begotten, and that he points out the way by which the souls now held down by the darkness will escape. Jesus, they say, clothed himself in that one and only power, and for that reason no one could see him: the greatness of his glory was too much. And they say that everything happened to him just as it is written in the Gospels.

The followers of Monoimus the Arab say that the source of everything is a first man and a son of man, and that, as Moses states, the things that have been produced were produced not by the first man but by the Son of that first man — and not by the whole Son, but by a part of him. Monoimus says that the Son of man is the iota, which stands for ten, the chief number, in which the being of all number resides, and through which every particular number holds together, and the generating of the universe as well: fire, air, water, and earth. [o]

But since this is one iota and one stroke, and what is perfect comes from what is perfect — or, to put it another way, a stroke flows down from above, holding all things in itself — then whatever the man possesses, the Father of the Son of man possesses too. So Moses says that the world was made in six days, that is, by six powers, out of which the world was made by that one stroke. For cubes and eight-sided figures and pyramids and every figure like them, whose faces are all alike, out of which fire and air and water and earth consist, have been produced from numbers held inside that simple stroke of the iota, which is the Son of man.

So when Moses mentions the rod being brandished to bring the plagues on Egypt, Monoimus says he is speaking in figures about the changes in the world of the iota — and Moses framed no more than ten plagues. If you want to become acquainted with the universe, he says, search inside yourself for who it is that says “my soul, my flesh, and my mind,” and who it is that takes each single thing for himself as another man would for himself. Understand that this is a perfect one arising from one that is perfect, and that he counts as his own all the so-called non-beings and all the beings. These, then, are the opinions of Monoimus too.

Tatian, like Valentinus and the rest, says that there are certain unseen Aeons, and that by one of them the world below and the things in it have been created. He trains himself in a thoroughly Cynic way of life, and he differs from Marcion in almost nothing, both in his slanders and in the rules he lays down about marriage. [p]

Marcion of Pontus and Cerdo, his teacher, also lay down three first principles of the universe: good, just, and matter. Some of their disciples add a fourth and say: good, just, evil, and matter. But they all say that the good one has made nothing at all; some of them call the just one evil as well, while others say his only title is “just.” They say the just one made everything out of the matter lying ready beneath him, and that he made it not well but without reason — for what is made has to be like the one who made it. That is why they use the parables of the Gospel this way, saying, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit,” and the rest of the passage. Marcion claims that the words point to the plans that the just one himself had badly devised. [q]

He says that Christ is the Son of the good one, and that Christ was sent by him for the salvation of souls; and Christ is the one he calls the inner man. He says Christ appeared as a man without being a man, and in the flesh without being in the flesh; his appearing was only a semblance, and he was neither born nor did he suffer, except in appearance. He will not allow that the flesh rises again. And by declaring marriage to be ruin, he leads his disciples toward a thoroughly Cynic life. By these means he imagines he is spiting the Creator: by keeping away from the things the Creator has made or appointed.

Apelles, a disciple of this man, was displeased with the statements his teacher advanced, as we said earlier, and by another theory supposed that there are four gods. The first of them, he claims, is the Good One, whom the prophets did not know, and Christ is his Son. The second god he says is the creator of the universe, and he does not want this one to be a god at all. The third god he says is the fiery one who was manifested, and the fourth is an evil one. Apelles calls these angels; and by adding Christ to their number he will make him a fifth god. This man habitually devotes his attention to a book he calls the Revelations of a certain Philumene, whom he takes for a prophetess. He says that Christ did not receive his flesh from the Virgin, but from the material of the world around him. In this way he composed his treatises against the law and the prophets, and tries to do away with them, as though they had spoken falsely and had not known God. And, like Marcion, Apelles says that flesh of every kind is destroyed. [r]

Cerinthus, who had been trained in Egypt, decided that the world was not made by the first God but by a certain angelic power — a power far removed and distant from the sovereignty that is above the whole circle of things, and one that does not know the God who is over everything. He says that Jesus was not born of a virgin, but that he came from Joseph and Mary as their son, like the rest of us, and that he was better than all the rest of humanity at doing what is right, and in good sense, and in understanding. Cerinthus holds that after Jesus’ baptism Christ came down on him in the form of a dove, from the sovereignty that is above the whole circle of things, and that he then went on to proclaim the unknown Father and to work miracles. And he says that at the end of the suffering Christ flew away from Jesus; Jesus suffered, but Christ remained beyond suffering, since he was a spirit of the Lord. [s]

The Ebionites say that the world is made by the true God, and they speak about Christ in the same way Cerinthus does. They live, however, in every respect according to the law of Moses, claiming that this is how they are counted righteous. [t]

Theodotus of Byzantium brought in a heresy of the following description. He claims that all things were created by the true God, but that Christ, he says, made his appearance in something like the way the Gnostics already mentioned describe. Theodotus states that Christ is a man of the same kind as all other men, but that he surpasses them in this: that by God’s plan he was born of a virgin, and the Holy Spirit overshadowed his mother. This man held, though, that Jesus did not take flesh in the Virgin’s womb; rather, Christ came down on Jesus afterward, at his baptism, in the form of a dove. That is why the followers of Theodotus say that at first the miraculous powers were not at work in the Savior himself. Theodotus, however, is determined to deny that Christ is God. Opinions of this description, then, are what Theodotus advanced.

Others too make all their claims in the same way as those already specified, bringing in one alteration only: they regard Melchizedek as a certain power. They claim that Melchizedek himself is higher than all powers, and after his image they want to maintain that Christ likewise is generated. [u]