Chapter I.—Absurd ideas of the disciples of Valentinus as to the origin, name,
order, and conjugal productions of their fancied Æons, with the passages of
Scripture which they adapt to their opinions.
1. They maintain, then, that in the invisible and ineffable heights above there exists a
certain perfect, pre-existent Æon,16 whom they call Proarche, Propator, and Bythus, and
describe as being invisible and incomprehensible. Eternal and unbegotten, he remained
throughout innumerable cycles of ages in profound serenity and quiescence. There existed
along with him Ennœa, whom they also call Charis and Sige.17 At last this Bythus determined
to send forth from himself the beginning of all things, and deposited this production (which
he had resolved to bring forth) in his contemporary Sige, even as seed is deposited in the
womb. She then, having received this seed, and becoming pregnant, gave birth to Nous,
who was both similar and equal to him who had produced him, and was alone capable of
comprehending his father’s greatness. This Nous they call also Monogenes, and Father, and
the Beginning of all Things. Along with him was also produced Aletheia; and these four
constituted the first and first-begotten Pythagorean Tetrad, which they also denominate
the root of all things. For there are first Bythus and Sige, and then Nous and Aletheia. And
Monogenes, perceiving for what purpose he had been produced, also himself sent forth
Logos and Zoe, being the father of all those who were to come after him, and the beginning
and fashioning of the entire Pleroma. By the conjunction of Logos and Zoe were brought
forth Anthropos and Ecclesia; and thus was formed the first-begotten Ogdoad, the root and
substance of all things, called among them by four names, viz., Bythus, and Nous, and Logos,
and Anthropos. For each of these is masculo-feminine, as follows: Propator was united by
a conjunction with his Ennœa; then Monogenes, that is Nous, with Aletheia; Logos with
Zoe, and Anthropos with Ecclesia.
2. These Æons having been produced for the glory of the Father, and wishing, by their
own efforts, to effect this object, sent forth emanations by means of conjunction. Logos and
Zoe, after producing Anthropos and Ecclesia, sent forth other ten Æons, whose names are
16 This term Æon (Αἰών) seems to have been formed from the words ἀεὶ ὤν, ever-existing. “We may take
αἰών, therefore,” says Harvey (Irenæus, cxix.), “in the Valentinian acceptation of the word, to mean an emanation
from the divine substance, subsisting co-ordinately and co-eternally with the Deity, the Pleroma still remaining
one.”
17 Sige, however, was no true consort of Bythus, who included in himself the idea of male and female, and
was the one cause of all things: comp. Hippolytus, Philosop., vi. 29. There seems to have been considerable dis-
agreement among these heretics as to the completion of the mystical number thirty. Valentinus himself appears
to have considered Bythus as a monad, and Sige as a mere nonentity. The two latest Æons, Christ and the Holy
Spirit, would then complete the number thirty. But other Gnostic teachers included both Bythus and Sige in
that mystical number.
Chapter I.—Absurd ideas of the disciples of Valentinus as to the origin, name, order, and conjugal productions of their fancied Æons, with the passages of Scripture which they adapt to their opinions.
845
Chapter I.—Absurd ideas of the disciples of Valentinus as to the origin,…