Against the Valentinians

​Therefore, in this book, in which we are only presenting a demonstration of that secret, lest anyone be clouded by names so strange, forced, patched up, and ambiguous, I shall first point out how we are going to use them. For the translation of some from Greek does not readily yield a convenient form of name in Latin; for some, the genders do not agree with their sex; and for some, the Greek term is more familiar. Therefore, we shall mostly use Greek terms; their meanings will be present at the margins of the pages, nor will the Greek be lacking even in Latin passages, but will be marked in lines above, so that this may be a sign of personal names because of their ambiguities, which share another meaning. However, although I have postponed the conflict, professing in the meantime only a narrative, yet if anywhere their shameful unworthiness deserves to be mocked, the attack will not be perfunctory even in this initial taste. Reader, count this play of conflict as a rehearsal before the battle; I will show, but not inflict, wounds. And if there is laughter anywhere, the subject matter itself will be satisfied. Many things are worthy of being refuted in this way, lest they be burdened with gravity. Jollity is properly conceded to vanity. It is also fitting for truth to laugh, because in her security she is glad to play with her rivals. Care must clearly be taken lest her laughter be laughed at, if it should be unworthy; otherwise, wherever laughter is worthy, it is a duty. Finally, I shall begin in this manner.

​First of all, the Roman poet Ennius simply pronounced ‘the greatest chambers of heaven’ (caenacula maxima), either in the name of its elevated site, or because he had read in Homer of Jupiter feasting there. But it is wonderful how many heights of heights and how many sublimities of sublimities the heretics have suspended, raised up, and expanded for the habitation of each of their gods. Even for our Creator, the Ennian chambers are arranged in the form of small shrines. With one after another lean-to built on top, and distributed to each god by as many ladders as there were heresies, the world has been made a lodging house. You would believe the great storeys of the heavens to be the Felicula block. I know not where in that place even the god of the Valentinians dwells, right up to the highest roof tiles. They call him substantially indeed ‘Perfect Aeon’ (Aiona Teleion), but personally ‘Forefather’ (Propatora) and ‘First Beginning’ (Proarchen), and also Bythos (Depth), which was least fitting for one dwelling in the heights. They define him as unborn, immense, infinite, invisible, and eternal, as if they immediately prove that he exists, if they define him such as we know he ought to be. Thus also, I demand not that he is said to have been before all things, but that he actually was; nor do I point out anything more in this sort of thing than that those who are said to have been before all things are found after all things, and indeed not by their own power. Therefore, this Bythos sits in infinite ages past in the greatest and deepest quiet, in the extreme leisure of a placid and, so to speak, stunned divinity, such as Epicurus commanded. And yet, though they wish him to be alone, they give him a second person in himself and with himself, Ennoia (Thought), whom they also call Charis (Grace) and Sige (Silence). And perhaps it happens in that most commended quiet that she prompts him at last to produce the beginning of things from himself. This, in place of seed, he deposits in his Sige, as if in the generative parts of a womb. She immediately receives it and is made pregnant and gives birth, certainly in silence, Sige. And whom does she bear? It is Nus (Mind), most like his father and equal in all things. In short, he alone is sufficient to comprehend that immense and incomprehensible magnitude of the father. Thus he himself is also called ‘father’ and ‘beginning of all things’ and properly ‘Monogenes’ (Only-begotten). And yet not properly, since he is not born alone. For with him there also came forth a female, whose name is Veritas (Truth). [Monogenes, because he was born first, how much more fittingly would he be called Protogenes!] Therefore, Bythos and Sige, Nus and Veritas are maintained as the first tetrad of the Valentinian faction, the matrix and origin of all things. For in that very place, Nus, as soon as he received the office of his own production, himself also emits from himself Logos (Word) and Zoe (Life). If this was not before, certainly it was not in Bythos either. And what sort of thing is it, that in God life should not have been? But this offspring also, emitted for the beginning of the universe and the formation of the whole Pleroma, produces fruit: it procreates Homo (Man) and Ecclesia (Church). You have the ogdoad, a double tetrad, from the couplings of males and females, the chambers, so to speak, of the primordial Aeons, the brother-sister marriages of the Valentinian gods, the entire registry of heretical holiness and majesty. I know not whether it is a crowd of crimes or of divinities, but certainly the fountain of the remaining fecundity.