these names, as being much more credible [than the others], as well as in general use, and
understood by all?
5. Others still, however, have called their primary and first-begotten Ogdoad by the
following names: first, Proarche; then Anennoetos; thirdly, Arrhetos; and fourthly, Aoratos.
Then, from the first, Proarche, there was produced, in the first and fifth place, Arche; from
Anennoetos, in the second and sixth place, Acataleptos; from Arrhetos, in the third and
seventh place, Anonomastos; and from Aoratos, in the fourth and eighth place, Agennetos.
This is the Pleroma of the first Ogdoad. They maintain that these powers were anterior to
Bythus and Sige, that they may appear more perfect than the perfect, and more knowing
than the very Gnostics! To these persons one may justly exclaim: “O ye trifling sophists!”
since, even respecting Bythus himself, there are among them many and discordant opinions.
For some declare him to be without a consort, and neither male nor female, and, in fact,
nothing at all; while others affirm him to be masculo-feminine, assigning to him the nature
of a hermaphrodite; others, again, allot Sige to him as a spouse, that thus may be formed
the first conjunction.
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Chapter XI.—The opinions of Valentinus, with those of his disciples and…