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.

5. After it had separated from the Plyroma of the Aeons, and its mother had been restored to her own combination. The Only-begotten, in accordance with the Father's providence, so that any of the aeons should not suffer like Wisdom, produced another couple into the stronghold and fortification of the Plyroma: Christ and the Holy Spirit, by which the aeons were put in order. For Christ instructed them concerning the nature of the couple, and taught them to be content with the concept of the Unbegotten, and proclaimed among them the knowledge of the Father, that he is incomprehensible and incomprehensible, and cannot be seen or heard, and is known only through the Only-begotten. And the reason for the eternal abiding for others is that the nature of the Father is incomprehensible, and the reason for their bringing into being and education is that which is comprehensible in the Father, that is, in the Son. This is what the newly-brought Christ did among the aeons.

6. But the Holy Spirit made them all equal, taught them to give thanks, and brought them to true peace. Thus, they say, the aeons became equal to each other both in image and in mood: all became minds, all in words, all men, and all Christs; In the same way, the feminine aeons have all become truths, all lives, spirits, and churches. When everything was firmly established and finally calmed down, then, they say, with great joy they sang the praises of the First Father, who enjoyed much joy. And for this beneficence, the aeons of the whole pleroma, by unanimous desire and decision, with the permission of Christ and the Spirit, brought and gathered together that each of the aeons had in itself the best and the most flourishing, and all this, harmoniously binding and carefully uniting, produced to the honor and glory of the Deep a work, the most perfect beauty and star of the Pleroma, the perfect fruit of Jesus, who is called both Saviour and Christ and the Word after the name of the Father, and then Pan, because he is from all. Together with him they produced in honor of themselves companions to him, angels of the same kind.

Гл. III. Места Священного Писания, на которые ссылались еретики

1. Таков, по словам их, ход дел внутри Плиромы: беда, постигшая увлекшийся страстью эон, который едва не погиб, как бы во многом веществе, от исследования Отца; укрепление сего эона после его напряжения посредством Предела, Креста, Освободителя, Отделителя, Пределоположника и Преводителя; происхождение, после эонов, первого Христа и Духа Святого, которых Отец произвел вследствие раскаяния Премудрости, и сложное и сборное устроение второго Христа, которого называют также Спасителем. Но этого, говорят, не сказано ясно, потому что не все вмещают знание, но таинственно указано Спасителем для могущих разуметь в притчах, а именно так: тридцать эонов, как сказали мы прежде, указаны тридцатью годами, в которые, по их мнению, Спаситель ничего не делал явно, и притчею о делателях в винограднике. И Павел, говорят, многократно весьма ясно именует сих эонов, и даже соблюл и порядок их, сказав так: во все роды веков века (Еф. 3:21). Да и мы, когда, при благодарениях говорим: во веки веков, означаем этих же эонов. И где только употребляется век или века, везде они находят указание на этих эонов.

2. А произведения дванадесятицы Эонов указано тем, что Господь, будучи двенадцати лет, беседовал с законоучителями (Лк. 2:42) и избранием Апостолов, ибо апостолов двенадцать (Деян. 1:3). Остальные же восемьнадцать эонов указаны в том, что Господь, по воскресении из мертвых, пребывал с учениками, по словам их, восемьнадцать месяцев (Деян. 1:3). Кроме того двумя начальными буквами Его имени, т. е. иотою (i) и итою (h), ясно указаны осмнадцать эонов. Точно также, говорят, первая в имени Господа буква: иота (i) означает десять эонов; и потому будто Спаситель сказал: иота едина или едина черта не прейдет, пока не исполнится все (Мф. 5:18).