Hl. I. The Valentinian Doctrine of the Aeons

1. They say that in the invisible and unnameable heights there first existed some perfect Aeon, who is called the First Principle (Proarch), the First Father (Propatwr) and the Depth (BaqoV). He is boundless and invisible, eternal and beginningless, and has existed for countless centuries of time in the greatest peace and tranquility. Inherent in it was "Thought (Ennoia), which is also called Grace (CariV) and silence (Eigh). This Depth once thought to produce from itself the beginning of all things, and this work which it thought to beget, like a seed in the womb of the mother, was laid in the Silence that coexisted with it.

The latter, having received this seed and conceived, gave birth to the Mind (NouV), which is like and equal to its parent, and alone contains in itself the greatness of the Father. They call this Mind the Only-begotten, also the Father and Principle of all. The Truth was born with him. Here is the first and original Pythagorean quaternary, which they call the root of everything: namely, Depth and Silence, then Mind and Truth. But when the Only-begotten felt what he was created for, He Himself produced the Word (LogoV) and the Life (Zwh), the Father of all who are to come after him, the beginning and formation of all Fullness (Plhrwma). From the Word and the Life, through the combination (suzugia), came Man and the Church. And this is the primordial osmeritsa (ogdoaV), the root and beginning of all things, which they call by four names, namely, Depth, Mind, Word, and Man. For each of them is together a man and a woman in this way: first the First Father copulated with his Thought; but the Only-begotten, i.e., the Mind with the Truth. The Word is with Life and Man is with the Church.

2) These aeons, produced for the glory of the Father, desired to glorify the Father of their own accord, and produced new works by their combination; namely, the Word and Life, after the work of Man and the Church, produced ten other aeons, which are called (by the Valentinians) by the following names: Deep (BuqioV) and Confusion (MixiV), Ageless (AghratoV) and Unity (EnwsiV), Native (AutofuhV) and Pleasure (Hdonh), Immovable (AkinhtoV) and Dissolution (ZugkrasiV), Only-begotten (MonogenhV) and Blessed (Makaria). These are the ten aeons that they say came from the Word and Life. Further, Man himself, together with the Church, produced twelve aeons, to which the following names are bestowed: the Comforter (ParaklhtoV) and Faith (PistiV), the Father (PatrikoV) and Hope (ElpiV), the Maternius (MhtrikoV) and Love (Agaph), the Eternal Mind (Aeinous) and Understanding (ZuuesiV), the Ecclesiastical (EkklhsiastikoV) and Bliss (MakariothV), the Desired (QhlhtoV) and the Wisdom (Sofia).

3. Here are thirty aeons of misguided people, aeons that hide in silence and are unknown to anyone. Here is their invisible and spiritual Fullness (Plhroma), divided in three parts: into osmeritsa, tenth, and twelve. For this reason, they say, the Saviour (for they do not want to call Him Lord) did nothing in reality for thirty years to indicate the mystery of these aeons. It is also asserted that in the parable of the laborers sent to the vineyard these thirty aeons are very clearly indicated: for some of them are sent at the first hour, others at the third, some at the sixth, others at the ninth, and some at the eleventh (Matt. 20:1-16), in complexity the aforesaid hours make up the number thirty; for one, three, six, nine, and eleven are equal to thirty; and the hours, according to them, signify the aeons. And such are the great wonderful and ineffable mysteries they engender, applying and adapting to their fiction everything that is said anywhere in the Scriptures in a certain number.

Hl. II. The Failure of Wisdom. The Work of Christ and the Holy Spirit

1. Their First Father, they say, is known only to the Only-begotten born of him, i.e., to the Mind; but to all others it is invisible and incomprehensible. And the Mind alone, according to them, delighted in the contemplation of the Father, and rejoiced in the thought of His immeasurable greatness; meanwhile, he planned to inform the other aeons about the greatness of the Father, what He is, and how great, how beginningless and incomprehensible and inaccessible to vision. But silence by the will of the Father restrained the Mind, because it wanted to lead all the aeons to understanding and the desire to investigate the above-mentioned First Father. In the same way, the other aeons, but as if on the sly, desired to see the producer of their race and to know the beginningless root.

2. But among them there was one aeon, the last and the youngest of the twelve ten, which came from Man and the Church, i.e. Wisdom, and felt passion without experiencing the embrace of her husband the Desired; this passion arose in the aeons derived from Mind and Truth, but passed on to this aeon, seduced, apparently, by love, but in fact by audacity, because it did not have such close communion as the Mind has with the perfect Father. Passion consisted in the desire to investigate the Father; for Wisdom, as they say, desired to comprehend his greatness. But she could not do it, because she took up an impossible task; and being in a very great tension, because of the greatness of the depth and inexplicability of the Father, and constantly stretching forward through a special love for Him, it could have been swallowed up in the sweetness of the Father in the end, and would have resolved into the universal essence, had it not met with the power that strengthens and guards everything beyond the ineffable majesty. This force is called the Limit (OroV); by it she was restrained and strengthened, and with difficulty she returned to herself, and being convinced that the Father was incomprehensible, she laid aside her former thoughts, together with the passion that had arisen in consequence of her excessive surprise.

3. And some of the Valentinians speak so fabulously about the passionate infatuation of Wisdom and her conversion, that she, undertaking a work beyond her strength and immense for her, gave birth to an ugly being, of the female sex, which she herself had, and seeing this, she was at first grieved at the imperfection of the birth, and feared that this would not cease her own existence; then she came to fear and bewilderment, looking for the reason for this and the way to hide what had happened. Having spent a long time in these passionate states, she undertook a conversion, and tried to return to the Father; but after a few efforts she weakened and began to beseech the Father. Other aeons pleaded with her, and especially the Mind. Therefore it is said that the essence of matter received its first beginning from ignorance, sorrow, fear, and amazement.

4. And the Father then produces through the Only-begotten the aforesaid Limit, an aeon without a couple and unmarried in the Father's own image. For the Father is sometimes combined with Silence, now they think to place above the difference between the male and female sexes. This limit is called the Cross, and the Liberator, and the Separator, and the Limiter, and the Leader (Luke 3:17). By means of this limit, they say, Wisdom is purified and strengthened, and restored in her couple. For, after the separation of Thought from it, together with the passion that surpassed it, it itself remained within the Plyroma; but its Thought, together with its passion, is separated and fenced off by the Limit, and being outside the Plyroma, although it is a spiritual essence, as a certain natural striving of the Aeon, it has no image and form, because it has received nothing. For this reason it is called a weak and feminine fruit.