Hl. IV. Achamoth and the Origin of the Visible World.

And as for what is outside the Plyroma, they say the following: The thought of the heavenly Wisdom, which is also called Achamoth, separated together with passion from the Plyroma, they say, of necessity boiled greatly in places of darkness and emptiness: for it became outside the light and the Plyroma, and, like a miscarriage, had no form or form, because it received nothing. But the heavenly Christ took pity on him, and, stretching out through the Cross, by His own power formed an image only in essence, but not in relation to knowledge; and having done this, he stepped back and took his power with him, leaving the Thought to himself, so that, feeling his suffering on account of his estrangement from the Plyroma, he would desire the most excellent, while having in himself a certain stench of immortality, left in him by Christ and the Holy Spirit; wherefore it is called by both names: Wisdom after the name of the Father, for its Father is called Wisdom, and the Holy Spirit after the Spirit of Christ. Having received the image and the faculty of understanding, but immediately being left without the Word invisibly present with it, that is, Christ, it rushed in search of the light that had left it, but could not overtake it, because the Limit prevented it. And at the same time, as they say, Limit, forbidding Thought to strive forward, said: Iao, from which the name Iao is derived. Not being able to cross the Limit because of its intertwining with passion, and remaining outside alone, (Thought) fell under all kinds of suffering, for it is manifold and diverse, and in the first place it suffered with sorrow that it had not attained what it desired, and also with fear that life would not leave it as it left the world, and bewilderment, and all this was accompanied by ignorance: only thought was not subjected to a certain change as a result of the passions, as Aeon, which was its mother, that is, the original Wisdom, but had a completely opposite nature. To him was surpassed by another disposition, namely, to turn to Him who gave life.

2. Such, they say, was the origin and essence of the matter of which this world was composed: from this conversion every soul of the world as well as of the demiurge was derived; and from fear and sorrow all the rest began. Namely: from his tears came all moist essence, from laughter – luminous; from sorrow and amazement – the bodily elements of the world. For, as they say, it either wept and grieved that it was left alone in darkness and emptiness, or rejoiced and laughed when the light that left it came to mind, then again fell into fear, and sometimes into bewilderment and amazement.

3. What next? It is not a small tragedy here, for each of them in his own imagination, one in this way and the other in another, explains with importance from what passion, from what element this essence originated. And it seems to me that it is not without reason that they do not want to teach this to everyone in reality, but teach only those who are able to give a large price for such sacraments. Such teachings are not like the one of which our Lord said: "Freely you have received, freely give" (Matt. 10:8): on the contrary, they are strange, monstrous and deep mysteries, which are obtained with great difficulty by lovers of lies. Who will not spend all his possessions to know that from the tears of the thoughts of the passionate Aeon the seas, springs, rivers, and all the moist essence have their origin, and from laughter the light, and from amazement and confusion the bodily elements of the world?

4. However, I myself want to contribute something to the development of their teachings. For I see that some waters, such as springs, rivers, rains, and the like, are fresh, but the salts of the sea, and I come to the thought that not all of them have come from the tears of Thought, because the tear is salty in its quality. Therefore it is evident that only salt waters came from his tears. But it is probable that the thought, being in great anguish and difficulty, also shed sweat. Therefore, according to their assumption, it must be assumed that the springs, rivers, and other fresh waters did not come from his tears. For it is improbable that both salt and fresh waters should come from tears, while the quality of tears is one. It is more probable that the former are from tears, and the latter from sweat. And since there are still some warm and caustic-tasting waters in the world, you must understand by what action and in what part it emitted these waters. Such conclusions agree with their assumption.

5. When their mother had thus passed through all the states of passion, and with difficulty freed herself from them, she turned, they say, with supplication to the light that had left her, that is, to Christ. And he, having ascended to the Plyroma, as if he himself had been too lazy to descend from it another time, but sent to it the Paraclete, that is, the Saviour, because the Father had given him all power and given to him all power, and the aeons did likewise, so that "by this all things were created, visible and invisible, thrones, deities, dominions." The Saviour is sent to her with His angels of the same age. And Achamoth, they say, was ashamed of him, and at first, for the sake of modesty, she put a veil on herself, and then, when she saw him with all his gifts, she received strength from his appearance and rushed to meet him. And he gave her an image regarding knowledge and healed her passions. He separated them from her, but did not leave them in neglect (for it was impossible for them to be destroyed, like the passions of the original Mother, because they had already taken root and had come into force), but, on the contrary, separating them separately, merged them together, united them, and from a disembodied passion transformed them into an unorganized substance; then He gave them the ability and property to enter into mixtures and bodily compositions, so that two essences came into being: the evil one from the passions, and the other partaker of suffering from its conversion. And for this reason, they say that the Savior created all things in possibility. Achamoth, they teach, having freed herself from passion, in joy began to contemplate the lights that were with him, that is, the angels who appeared with the Saviour, and having copulated with them, she gave birth to fruits in their image, that is, a spiritual offspring composed in the likeness of the companions of the Saviour.

Hl. V. The Education of the Demiurge

1. When, therefore, according to the Valentinians, these three kinds of being came into being, one from passion, that is, substance, another from conversion, that is, of the soul, and third, which was produced by Achamoth herself, that is, spiritual; then she turned to their education. But she could not form the spiritual, because it was of the same essence with her; she took up the formation of the spiritual essence that proceeded from her conversion, and brought to light the lessons of the Savior. And at first it is said that from the essence of the soul it formed the Father and king of all beings, both consubstantial with him, that is, natural, which they call right, and proceeded from passion and matter, which they call left. For all that after him, they say, he formed imperceptibly set in motion by the Mother, wherefore they call him Mother-Father (Mhtropatwr), and fatherless (Apatwp), and Demiurge (DhmiourgoV), and Father, saying that he is the father of the right, that is, of the soul, and the creator of the left, that is, of the material, and the king of all things. For it is said that this Thought, desiring to do everything in honor of the aeons, created their likenesses, or rather, the Saviour created them by means of Thought. And it was preserved unknown to the Demiurge in the image of the invisible Father, and the Demiurge was made in the image of the only-begotten Son, and the images of the other aeons were the archangels and angels who received their existence from the Demiurge.

2. Wherefore, they say, being the creator of all things spiritual and material, he became the Father and God of those who are outside the Plyroma; because He brought two merged essences into separation from the incorporeal, produced bodies, created the heavenly and the earthly; He became the creator of the material and the mental, the right and the left, the light and the heavy, striving upward and downward. He prepared the seven heavens, on the top of which, according to them, is the Demiurge, and therefore they call him the Septatric, and his mother Achamoth the Osmeritsa, which preserves the number of the first and first Osmeritsa Plyroma. Of the seven heavens they say that they are intelligent, and they believe that they are angels; and the demiurge himself is also an angel, but like God, as well as of Paradise, which is higher than the third heaven, it is asserted that he is the fourth archangel in power, and from him Adam, who dwelt in him, borrowed certain qualities.

3. But although the Demiurge thought, they say, that he had created this of his own accord, yet he did it with the assistance of Achamotha. He created the heavens, not knowing what the heavens were; created man without knowing what man is; He brought into the world the earth, not knowing what the earth was; and they also say about everything, he did not know the ideas of what he was doing, he did not know the Mother herself, but thought that all this was himself. And the cause of this opinion, they say, was his Mother, who wished to make him the head and principle of his own being, and the master of every kind of action. And this mother is called Osmeritsa, and Wisdom, and Earth, and Jerusalem, and the Holy Spirit, and the Lord in the masculine gender; but it occupies a place in the middle: above the demiurge, and below or outside the pleroma, until the very end.

4. Since, therefore, according to them, the material essence originated from the three passions: fear, sorrow, and confusion, it is thought that the soul received its origin from fear and conversion, and it is from conversion that the demiurge is derived, and from fear all other animate beings, such as the souls of dumb animals, beasts, and human beings. Therefore, they say, the Demiurge, being incapable of knowing anything spiritual, thought that He Himself was the only God, and said through the prophets: "I am God, and there is none besides Me" (Isaiah 45:5,6; 46:9). Further, they teach that from sorrow came the spirits of malice; from this the devil, whom they call the ruler of the world, demons and angels, and every spiritual evil creature received existence. And although they call the Demiurge the son of their Mother, and the World-Holder the creature of the Demiurge, they say that the World-Holder knows above him, because he is a spirit of malice, and the Demiurge, as a spiritual one, does not know. Their Mother, according to them, dwells in the most heavenly place, that is, in the middle, and the Demiurge is in heaven, that is, in the seven, and the ruler of the world is in our world. The corporeal elements of the world originated, as we said before, from terror and confusion, as from the more insignificant; namely, the earth from the state of terror, the water from the movement produced by fear, the air from the condensation of sorrow; and fire, which produces death and corruption, is inherent in all of them, just as ignorance, according to their teaching, is hidden in these three passions.

5. Having created the world. (The demiurge) also created earthly man, taking not from this dry earth, but from an invisible essence, from diffuse and flowing matter, and breathed into him a natural man. And this is man, created in the image and in the likeness: in the image he is substantial and close, but not of one essence with God; and by the likeness of the soul, which is why its essence is called the spirit of life, proceeding from spiritual outflow. After all this, they say, he surrounded him with a leather garment, and by this they mean this sensual flesh.

6. 

And so, according to their words, by an ineffable providence, without the knowledge of the Demiurge, together with his breath, the spiritual man was infused with Wisdom: for (the Demiurge) did not know either the Mother or her seed, which itself, they say, is the Church, the image of the Church above. In this way they imagine man in themselves, that they have a soul from the Demiurge, a body from dust, flesh from matter, and a spiritual man from the mother Achamotha.