It is here that Valentinus’s thought rejoins the common foundation of all Gnostics. But, in his turn, his æonology and cosmology must have known a very great success in the throng of small schools in which Gnosticism came to an end and which remain for us to characterize briefly in order to complete our study of Gnosticism.
If we adopt the classification that seems most well-informed, that of M. de Faye, the themes that we have just covered are found in three groups of schools: a group studied by the heresiologists and which we can call the Followers of the Mother; next, and through the medium of the previous ones, these themes are passed on to the Gnostics, the majority of which are mentioned in the Philosophumena,and to a group of Coptic Gnostics of whom the Codex Brucianus and the Pistis Sophia give us a faithful image. Moreover, the relation between them is completely theoretical, because, if it is true that the Followers of the Mother roughly preceded in time the two later groups, each of the three schools is composed of such a large number of sects that it is likely that they overlapped each other and that they have intertwined their themes. But the intellectual relation is real, just as the necessities of exposition render this classification indispensable. We will limit ourselves, moreover,
- Cited by the author of the Dialogue contre les Marcionites, Amelineau, [Essai sur le Gnosticisme égyptien,] p. 230: “J’en vins à croire à la réalité de ce qu’ont représenté les tragédies, je suis persuadé qu’elles ne mettent sous les yeux que la vérité. Je crois au désir d’Oenomaüs pendant son ivresse, je ne regarde pas comme une chose incroyable que deux frères aient pu se combattre l’un l’autre. Et je ne trouvais pas en moi la force de dire que Dieu était l’auteur et le créateur de tous ces maux.”*
to the information and the texts in order to complete our depiction of Gnostic thought.
The Followers of the Mother are thus named because nearly all of them accept a female principle as the origin of the world. But even within this rubric, we can include the Barbelo-Gnostics (Barbelo is the name of the female principle), the Orphites of whom Hippolytus speaks, and the “Gnostics” of Irenaeus. They lay stress primarily on the rivalry between the first principle, the Mother, and the male principle, or Iadalboath. The latter created man, and the Mother corrected that which was disastrous in this creation by placing in man a divine seed. Through this the classical history of Redemption was introduced according to Valentinian themes.
The Philosophumena cites and comments upon a great number of Gnostics whom it would be vain to want to recall one by one in order to rediscover ideas we have already encountered. It will be easiest to cite those texts which, by their peculiar or curious intentions, will illustrate, as it were, Valentinus’s, Basilides’, or Marcion’s doctrines, as a pastiche often conveys the spirit of a work. At the same time they give us a very precise idea of a way of thinking that was quite common during this strange period, often condemned, yet at times suggestive.
The Naasseni38 emphasize pessimism regarding the world and are overly meticulous in theology. “This is . . . ‘the god that inhabiteth the flood,’ according to the Psalter, ‘and who speaketh and crieth from many waters.’ The ‘many waters’ . . . are the diversified generation of mortal men, from which (generation) he cries and vociferates to the unportrayed man, saying, ‘Preserve my only-begotten from the lions.’ In reply to him, it has . . . been declared, ‘Israel, thou art my child: fear not, even though thou passest through rivers, they shall not drown thee; even though thou passest through fire, it shall not scorch thee.’”39
- This, at least, is the name De Faye gives them.
- Philosophumena,V, 8 [sic]: “C’est le Dieu dont parle un Psaume, qui habite le déluge et qui du sein de la multitude des eaux élève la voix et crie. Les eaux, c’est le lieu où sont les générations multiples et variées des hommes mortels. De là il crie vers l’homme qu’aucune forme ne définit, il dit: ‘Délivre ton fils unique des lions.’ C’est à lui que s’adresse cette parole: ‘Tu es mon fils Israël, ne crains pas lorsque tu traverses les fleuves, ils ne te submergeront pas; si tu traverses le feu, il ne te consumera pas.”
[Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, 5.3, trans. MacMahon, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 5:53.—Trans.]
The Peratæ stress Redemption, which consists in an attraction that the Son exercises over all that bears a resemblance to the Father. This is the theory of Paternal Marks: “For as he brought down from above the paternal marks, so again he carries up from thence those marks roused from a dormant condition.”40
For the Sethians, the superior world is the one of light, while our world is that of darkness. They illustrate our search for the divinity in the following manner: “It is possible to behold an image of the nature of these in the human countenance; for instance, in the pupil of the eye, dark from the subjacent humours, (but) illuminated with spirit. As, then, the darkness seeks after the splendour, that it may keep in bondage the spark, and may have perceptive power, so the light and spirit seek after the power that belongs to themselves, and strive to uprear, and towards each other to carry up their intermingled powers into the dark and formidable water lying underneath.”41Justinus, the Gnostic of whom Hippolytus speaks, is rather a leader of a religious brotherhood. The sexually symbolic plays a great part in his speculations. It is thus that the world has three parts: the Good God, Elohim the Father Creator, and Edem his wife who represents the world. Tragedy is born when Elohim, drawn to the Good God, abandons Edem. Edem, in order to avenge herself, creates wicked man. Hence the need for Redemption. “Elohim . . . exclaimed, ‘Open me the gates, that entering in I may acknowledge the Lord; for I consider Myself to be Lord.’ A voice was returned to Him from the light, saying, ‘This is the gate of the Lord: through this the righteous enter in.’ And immediately the gate was opened, and the Father, without the angels, entered, (advancing) towards the Good One, and beheld ‘what eye hath not seen, nor ear hath heard, and what hath not entered into the heart of man to (conceive).’ Then the Good One says to him, ‘Sit thou on my right hand.’”42
- Ibid., V, 16 [sic]: “comme il a emporté d’en haut les empreintes du Père, de même réciproquement il emporte d’ici là-haut ces empreintes du Père lorsqu’elles ont été réveillées.”
[Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, 5.12, ibid., 64.—Trans.] - Philosophumena, V, 15 [sic]: “L’image de ces choses, c’est la pupille de l’oeil. D’une part, elle est sombre, ce sont les liquides sous-jacents qui l’enténèbrent, d’autre part un pneuma l’illumine: comme les ténèbres de la pupille s’attachent à cette clarté et voudraient la garder et se l’asservir afin de voir, de même la lumière et l’esprit recherchent avec ardeur leur vertu égarée dans les ténèbres.”
[Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, 5.14, ibid., 65.—Trans.] - Cited by De Faye, [Gnostiques et Gnosticisme,] p. 191 [sic]: “Elohim s’écrie: ‘Ouvrezmoi les portes afin que j’entre et que je voie le Seigneur. Car je croyais jusqu’ici être le Seigneur.’ Au sein de la lumière se fait entendre une voix qui disait: ‘Voici la porte du Seigneur, les Justes la franchiront.’ Aussitôt la porte s’ouvre et le Père, sans les anges, y entre et va vers le Bon. Et il contemple les choses que l’oeil n’a point vues et que l’oreille n’a pas entendues et qui ne sont point montrées au coeur de l’homme. Alors le Bon lui dit: ‘Assieds-toi à ma droite’.”
[Hippolytus, The Refutation of All Heresies, 5.21, ibid., 71.—Trans.]
Finally, we can add to these rather obscure ideas those of a docetic Gnostic who describes Redemption in this way: “After some such manner, that only begotten Son, when He gazes upon the forms of the supernatural Æons, which were transferred from above into darkish bodies, coming down, wished to descend and deliver them. When (the Son), however, became aware that the Æons, those (that subsist) collectively, are unable to hold the Pleroma of all the Æons, but that in a state of consternation they fear lest they may undergo corruption as being themselves perishable, and that they are overwhelmed by the magnitude and splendour of power;—(when the Son, I say, perceived this) he contracted Himself—as it were a very great flash in a very small body, nay, rather as a ray of vision condensed beneath the eyelids, and (in this condition) He advances forth as far as heaven and the effulgent stars. And in this quarter of creation He again collects Himself beneath the lids of vision according as He wishes it … He entered into this world just as we have described Him, unnoticed, unknown, obscure, and disbelieved.”43
If we add to
