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The Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy; for Pleroma means the “Fullness,” the superior regions. It is the sum total of all the divine manifestations and emanations expressing the plenum or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE, differentiating on all the planes, and transforming themselves into divine Powers, called Angels and Planetary Spirits in the philosophy of every nation. The Gnostic Aeons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and Sddhus of the Purânas. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of God, the “Principle” of Simon Magus and Saturninus,5 holds the same language as the Logos of Basilides;6 and each of these is traced to the purely esoteric Aletheia, the TRUTH of the Mysteries. All of them, we are taught, repeat at different times and in different languages the magnificent hymn of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old: “The Gods adore thee, they greet thee, O the One Dark Truth”; and addressing R, they add: “The Gods bow before thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of that which produces them . . . and say to thee, Peace to all emanations from the Unconscious Father of the Conscious Fathers of the Gods. . . . Thou producer of beings, we adore the Souls which emanate from thee. Thou begettest us, O thou Unknown, and we greet thee in worshipping each God-Soul which descendeth from thee and liveth in us.” (Hymn to Amon-Râ. This is the source of the assertion, “Know ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God.” This is shown in the “Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry,” Lucifer for March 1889.<ref>[Collected Writings, Vol. XI.]</ref> Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago, “Man cannot possess Truth (Aletheia) except he participate in the Gnosis.” So we may say now: No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets of the Plerôma of Occultism; and these secrets are all in the Theogony of the ancient Wisdom-Religion, which is the Aletheia of Occult Science.
The Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy; for Pleroma means the “Fullness,” the superior regions. It is the sum total of all the divine manifestations and emanations expressing the plenum or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE, differentiating on all the planes, and transforming themselves into divine Powers, called Angels and Planetary Spirits in the philosophy of every nation. The Gnostic Aeons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and Sddhus of the Purânas. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of God, the “Principle” of Simon Magus and Saturninus,5 holds the same language as the Logos of Basilides;6 and each of these is traced to the purely esoteric Aletheia, the TRUTH of the Mysteries. All of them, we are taught, repeat at different times and in different languages the magnificent hymn of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old: “The Gods adore thee, they greet thee, O the One Dark Truth”; and addressing R, they add: “The Gods bow before thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of that which produces them . . . and say to thee, Peace to all emanations from the Unconscious Father of the Conscious Fathers of the Gods. . . . Thou producer of beings, we adore the Souls which emanate from thee. Thou begettest us, O thou Unknown, and we greet thee in worshipping each God-Soul which descendeth from thee and liveth in us.” (Hymn to Amon-Râ. This is the source of the assertion, “Know ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God.” This is shown in the “Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry,” Lucifer for March 1889.<ref>[Collected Writings, Vol. XI.]</ref> Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago, “Man cannot possess Truth (Aletheia) except he participate in the Gnosis.” So we may say now: No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets of the Plerôma of Occultism; and these secrets are all in the Theogony of the ancient Wisdom-Religion, which is the Aletheia of Occult Science.
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<center><big>COMPILER’S NOTES</big></center>
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<sup>1</sup>The available sources of information concerning Simon Magus fall under three heads:
I. THE SIMON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT:
Acts (viii, 9-24). Author and date unknown, but commonly supposed to be “by the author of the third gospel, traditionally known as Luke” (Wm. Smith, A Dictionary of the Bible, 1863 & 1893, s.v. “Acts of the Apostles.”).
II. THE SIMON OF THE CHURCH FATHERS:
Justin Martyr (Justinius Flavius, 100?-165 A.D.). First Apologia (I, 26.56), the probable date of which is A.D. 141. The single MS. preserved is cod. Paris, 450, A.D. 1364. Text: J.C.T. Eques de Otto, Justini philosophi et martyris opera quae feruntur omnia, 3rd ed. in 5 vols., Jena, 1876-81. English transl. by John Kaye, Edinburgh: John Grant, 1912. Also in the Oxford Library of the Fathers and the Ante Nicene Christian Library.––Second Apologia (II, 15), the probable date of which is uncertain. As above.––Dialogus cum Tryphone (120) the probable date of which is A.D. 142-148. As above.
Irenaeus, Greek Bishop of Lyons (97-147?––202-203 A.D.). Chief literary activity in the last decennium of the second century. Contra Haereses (I, xxiii, 1-4). MSS. probably of the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries. Text: Opera, ed. by Adolph Stieren, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1848-53. English transl. in Ante-Nicene Christian Library. Pertinent passages in G. R. S. Mead, Simon Magus, London, Theosophical Publishing Society, 1892, pp. 8-10. Originally published in Lucifer, London, Vols. X-XI, June––December, 1892.
Clemens Alexandrinus (Titus Flavius Clemens, 150? ––220 A.D.) Head of the Cathechetical School. Greatest literary activity about 190-203 A.D. Stromateis or Stromata (ii, 11; vii, 17), meaning Miscellanies. Preserved in one MS. only of the 11th century: Cod. Flor. (Laur. v. 3) (L). Greek and Latin edition of John Potter, Bishop of Oxford and later Archbishop of Canterbury, Oxford, 1715 and 1757, fol. 2 vols. Standard ed. of collected works by O. Stählin, Leipzig, 1905. English transl. of the Stromata in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library.
Tertullianus (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, ca. 155––ca. 220-240). De Prescriptionibus adversus Haereticos (46), ca. 199 A.D. Text: Liber de Praes., etc., ed. by H. Hurter, S. J. Oeniponti, 1870. Also in J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Latina, Paris, 1879. English transl. in Ante-Nicene Christian Library.––De Anima (34, 36), ca. 208-09 A.D. Text: Bibliothec. Patr. Eccles. Select. {{Page aside|572}}of Dr. G. B. Linder, Fasc. iv, Leipzig, 1859. English transl. in Ante-Nicene Christian Library, and pertinent passage in Mead, op. cit., p. 11.
Hippolytus Romanus (d. ca. 230 A.D.), Philosophumena (vi, 7-20). See below.
Origen (Origenes Adamantius, 185-86––254-55 A.D.). Contra Celsum (i, 57; v, 62, vi, 11). Principal apologetic work of the writer, written at Caesarea in the time of Philip the Arabian. Contains nearly the whole of the famous work of Celsus, Logos Alethes, against Christianity. The work shows a close affinity between Origen’s own views and those of Celsus on many subjects. MS. of 14th century. Greek text in J. P. Migne, Patrol. Gr., Vols. XI-XVII. English translation: by F. Crombie & W. H. Cairns in Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Vols. X & XXIII (Edinburgh, 1869-72); and by Henry Chadwick, with Introd. and Notes (Cambridge, Univ. Press, 1953; xl, 531 pp.), as well as copious Index and Bibliography. Pertinent passages in Mead, op. cit., pp. 22-23.
Philastrius, Bishop of Brixia (Brescia), d. ca. 387. De Haeresibus, i. Text: Patres Quarti Ecclesiae Saeculi, ed. by D. A. B. Caillau, Paris, 1842, and in Franz Oehler’s Corpus Haeresiologicum, Berlin, 1859-61. Pertinent passages in Mead, op. cit., pp. 23-24.
Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis (310-20––404 A.D.). Contra Haereses or Panarion (ii, 1-6). MS. of the 11th century. Text: Opera, ed. by G. Dindorf, Leipzig, 1859; and by K. Holl, Leipzig, 1915. Greek and Latin edition by Franz Oehler in his Corpus Haeresiologicum, Berlin, 1859-61. Pertinent passages transl. into English in Mead, op. cit., pp. 24-28.
Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, 340-420 A.D.). Commentarius in Evangelium secundum Matthaeum (IV, xxiv, 5), written ca. 387. Text: J. P. Migne, Patrol, Graec., VII, and Ser. Latina, XXVI, Paris, 1884. Pertinent passage in Mead, op. cit., p. 28.
Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrrhus (ca. 386––453-58 A.D.). Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium (I, i). MS. of 11th century. Text: Greek and Latin ed. of Opera Omnia by the Jesuit Jac. Sirmond, Paris, 1642, re-edited by J. L. Schulze, Halae Sax., 1769-74. Pertinent passages transl. by Mead, op. cit., pp. 28-30.
III. THE SIMON OF THE LEGENDS:
References to Simon Magus are to be found in the so-called Clementine Literature, namely in the Recognitions (Text: Rufino Aquilei Presb. Interprete [curante E. G. Gersdorf], Leipzig, 1838), the Homiliae {{Page aside|573}}(Text: Bibliotheca Patrum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Selecta, Vol. I, ed. Albertus Schwegler, Tubingensis, Stuttgardt, 1847), and the Apostolic Constitutions (Text: S.S. Patrum qui Temporibus Apostolicis Floruerunt Opera, ed. by J. B. Cotelerius, Amsterdam, 1742). A summery of the stories contained therein may be found in Mead, op. cit., pp. 31-37.
The sources enumerated above are of very unequal value. It is only when we come to the Simon of the Philosophumena that we feel on any safe ground. The prior part of it is of special interest on account of the quotations from The Great Revelation or Announcement ('''ή μεγάλη ἀπόφασις'''), a work supposed to have been written by Simon and which is not mentioned in any other source. It is obvious that the author of Philosophumena (called also the Elenchus), whoever he was, had access to some of the writings of the Simonians, from which he drew his copious citations.
It was not until the year 1842 that Minoides Mynas, a learned Greek, brought to Paris from one of the monastaries on Mount Athos, on his return from a literary mission given him by the French Government, a fourteenth century MS. in a mutilated condition. This was the MS. of the Philosophumena supposed to have been written in the first quarter of the third century by Hippolytus Romanus, Bishop of Ostia, in refutations of all heresies, divided into ten books, though beginning in the middle of the fourth one as the first three and a half books were missing. Emmanuel Miller, who published the book in 1851 for the University of Oxford, noticed that these newly-recovered books belonged to the same work as what had been published under the name of Origen’s Philosophumena by J. F. Gronovius (1611-71), and later in the Benedictine edition of Origen. Miller ascribed the whole text to Origen which gave rise to a very heated controversy. A number of scholars seemed to have found conclusive evidence that this work was written by Hippolytus, but its real authorship is still in question.
The Philosophumena or Refutatio Omnium Haeresium, first published by Miller in 1851, was edited by Lud. Duncker and F. G. Schneidewin, Göttingen, 1859. It may be consulted in Migne’s Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Ser. Gr.-Lat., XVI-3. Greek and Latin text edited by Patricius Cruice, Paris, Imprimerie Royale, 1860. English translation by the Rev. J. H. Macmahon in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Edinburgh, 1867-72 (Vol. I, 1868), and Buffalo, 1884-86. Pertinent passages in Mead, op. cit., pp. 12-22.
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<sup>2</sup>[Excerpts from G. de Purucker, Fountain-Source of Occultism. Theosophical University Press, Pasadena, Calif., 1974, pp. 193-97.]
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<center><big>'''ON THE GNOSTIC AEONS'''</big></center>
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<sup>2</sup>“During the two or three centuries following the downfall of the esoteric system in Europe and its appurtenant Mystery schools––a downfall which had its incipient stages around the beginning of the Christian era––there came into existence quite a number of mystical and quasi-occult schools of thought, some of them containing no small portion of the then fading light of esoteric wisdom, others only feeble rays.
“Among these schools thus rising into a temporary vogue were the different groups of the Gnostics, most of them commonly miscalled by Christian historical writers “heretical Christian sects,” although, as a matter of fact, they were far less Christian than they were declining rays from the original centers of esoteric teaching in the Mediterranean world. Yet it is true that some of these Gnostic groups, for one reason or another and mainly through expediency, had certain avenues of rapprochement with the different Christian sects, probably in order that they might be allowed to live more or less in peace and to continue in relative safety their private studies.
“The whole truth about these Gnostic sects has never yet been written. The Gnostic School of Simon was one of the most faithful in teaching some of the fundamental doctrines of the esoteric philosophy. Other Gnostic groups preserving elements of the archaic wisdom were those founded by Menander, Valentinus, Basilides, etc. Simon, because he taught in an age which, while avid and hungry for all kinds of occult and quasi-occult knowledge, was yet extremely critical and theologically unfriendly, obviously had to phrase his teaching in forms of speech that would not offend the dominant Christian power. Consequently, he abandoned very largely the sacred and ages-old phrases of teaching, and used manners of speech and illustrations which were often quite exoteric, and in certain cases were actually invented by him in order to conceal from the enemies of his school just what he really meant in his doctrines––the inner meaning of which was nevertheless perfectly comprehensible to his instructed followers. . . . .
“When H. P. B. refers to Simon’s system of Aeons as starting “at the plane of globes A and G,” the reader should remember that there are not just seven, but actually twelve different evolutionary stages of growth in the life history of an imbodiment of a planetary chain from its beginning to its end. She passed over in relative silence the first five preliminary stages, and takes up the chain really at its sixth stage, {{Page aside|575}}which she calls the ‘first.’ The following diagram may make the matter somewhat clearer:
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{{Style P-No indent|Primordial Stages {1. Aetheric. 2. Etheric.}}
{{Style P-No indent|Elementary Evolution {1. First Elemental Kingdom. 2. Second Elemental Kingdom. 3. Third Elemental Kingdom.}}
{{Style P-No indent|The Seven Manifested Globes {1. Globe A fiery. 2. Globe B aery. 3. Globe C watery. 4. Globe D solid or earthy. 5. Globe E ethereal. 6. Globe F ethereal-spiritua. 7. Globe G quasi-spiritual.}}
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“From this it is seen that preceding the evolution of the elemental kingdoms, which are the first to aid in building a globe on a plane, there are the aetheric and etheric stages, which really are the earliest cometary stage in its two chief divisions of development. Once these two primordial stages of preparation and quasi-materialization are ended, then the three main classes of elementals, which have been preparing themselves and have been separated and drawn into their three respective classes, begin their work of laying the foundations of a globe-to-be.
“Again, when the three classes of elementals have built the outline of the globe-to-be, each class following when the preceding one has finished its work, the true globe commences its existence in what is here called the first round, because, by the time the three elemental kingdoms have completed their task, the different families of monads have become more or less segregated into their respective groups, and hence are ready to begin their rounds as life-waves.
“From this time forwards, the seven rounds start and continue through serial progressions around all the globes of the chain; for it is to be noted that while the above description deals mainly with globe D, all the other globes have been likewise evolving or coming into manifestation pari passu with it. A round begins in the highest of the twelve globes and proceeds regularly from globe to globe around the chain. This is but another way of stating that every globe unfolds from itself its surplus of life, or lives.
“First of all we have the aetheric awakening into life of a laya-center, which, starting to move in its wanderings through space, gradually {{Page aside|576}}accretes to itself aetheric and etheric matter and thus slowly enters upon its second stage, the etheric; and when this stage is ended, the laya-center which is now manifesting as an ethereal comet, has just about become a member of the solar system to which its karmic destiny has inevitably drawn it back to embodiment as a planetary chain-to-be. Once the comet is settled in its orbit around the sun as a highly ethereal globe in the first, or first and second states, of the matter of the physical cosmic plane, the three kingdoms of the elementals in serial order begin their characteristic activities,<ref>Cf. The Secret Doctrine, I, 205-6, footnote:<br>
“The seven fundamental transformations of the globes or heavenly spheres, or rather of their constituent particles of matter, is described as follows: (1) The homogeneous; (2) the aeriform and radiant (gaseous); (3) Curd-like (nebulous)(4) Atomic, Ethereal (beginning of motion, hence of differentiation), (5) Germinal, fiery (differentiated, but composed of the germs only of the Elements, in their earliest states, they having seven states, when completely developed on our earth); (6) Four-fold, vapoury (the future Earth); (7) Cold and depending (on the Sun for life and light).”</ref> and so gradually build a luminous and glowing or ‘cloudy’ body of very slight physical density, and a type which probably our astronomers would describe as ethereally fiery. (The word fiery is used to suggest the glowing or luciform nature of fire in its first stages rather than the physical fire producing heat, as we have it on earth; electric substance might perhaps convey the idea somewhat better.) When this stage has been finished then the ‘first round’ starts, and it is with this round that H.P.B. begins her marvelous exposition.
“The process of solidification or of materialization of the globes proceeds steadily until the middle of the fourth round, after which a re-etherealizing of the globe takes place, concomitant with and followed by the spiritualizing on the upward or luminous arc of the various families of monads which have been following or making these rounds up to the present point.”
<sup>3</sup>Menander, or Mainandros, was one of the teachers of the “Simonian” Gnosis, a native of the Samaritan town Capparatea, about whose personal life we know next to nothing. The center of his activity is said to have been Antioch, one of the most important commercial and literary cities of the Greco-Roman world. Menander has been singled out by Justin for special mention, because of his having led “many” away, which might easily be interpreted to mean that he built a considerable following among the seekers.
<sup>4</sup>“It is one of the fundamental teachings of the esoteric philosophy that every sound has its innate swbhvic color, and, conversely, that every color has its inherent swbhvic sound; and that, as a corollary, {{Page aside|577}}since both sound and color are expressions of rates of vibration, there can be no sound and no color without number, for every period of vibrational frequency has just so many units of vibration, which is equivalent to saying it is a number.
“From this standpoint, when we speak of sound we at once imply both color and number; or, whenever we speak of color we imply sound and the vibrational number which manifests it; and equally so, whenever we speak of number, had we the eyes to see it and the ears to hear it, we should see the color as well as hear the sound corresponding to such number or vibrational frequency. It is to this that Pythagoras alluded when he spoke of the majestic harmony of the spheres.
“Now as every atom in every object of nature, animate or inanimate, sings its own keynote and produces its own sound and has its own color and number, so every man, flower, tree, and every celestial body, is a play and interplay of sounds both loud and faint, interblending in a marvelous symphony, as well as being a beautiful intermingling of flashing and scintillating color. For instance, the auric egg of a man, because of the continuous activities of the prnic auras, is not only a mass of coruscating colors, but equally is a living organ producing harmonies of sound when the emotions, thoughts, and feelings are on a high plane, and horrible discord when they are characterized by hatred and other low passions.
“For many decades astronomers have been intrigued by the varying shades of color which the vast stellar host presents; some stars are bluish, others are yellowish, still others reddish. The scientific idea is that the colors of the stars represent different ages in their evolutionary development. Be that as it may, and viewing the matter from another angle, it would be wrong to say that all blue stars are more spiritual than all red stars, merely because red is given as the color of kma, and blue or indigo-blue as the color of the higher manas. For there is a spiritual red as well as a material red, and a spiritual blue as well as a material blue. Indeed, there are strong occult reasons for saying that for certain stars a reddish color would signify a more spiritual condition than the bright electric blue of certain others. The greater the intensity of vibration of light or radiation, the lower or more material in the scale that light is; and as the color of blue in our own octave of visible radiation is produced by a much higher frequency than is red, it is obvious that blue could signify a more material condition than the less intense vibration of red.
“H.P.B. has stated that ‘the true color of the Sun is blue’<ref>E.S. Instruction, No. II. [Footnote ‡ on p. 548.]</ref> because its vital aura is blue. It is the real sun in the same sense as the vital aura of a human being is the real man; nevertheless the real man, the essential core, is the spiritual source of his merely vital aura. It would {{Page aside|578}}not be correct to say that the sun’s vital aura is the interior sun; it is merely one of the coats or layers of its auric egg, and by no means one of the most interior. The blue force spoken of is the sun’s vital aura intermingled, to some extent, with intellectual and spiritual energy, which flows forth from the sun continuously and in all directions. The sun is constantly pouring forth this blue energy in simply inestimable volume.
“Other suns have other colors, which are the expressions of their complex swabhvas. Likewise, could we hear the sounds which the various celestial bodies make as their natural expression, we would realize that each sun, each star, each planetoid, has its own characteristic keynote. Our scientists already are able to ‘hear’ certain stars, that is, to transform the light coming from a particular luminary into sound.<ref>Cf. The Mahatma Letters, p. 170. [Page 166 in 3rd ed.]</ref> Curiously enough, when the moon’s rays lighted upon the photoelectric cell used in these experiments, they sent forth moaning sounds, as of the tolling of great bells; but when the light from the bright star Arcturus flashed, it gave forth brilliant, scintillating sounds. If we could know the scheme of the correspondence of colors and sounds and numbers, we would be able to judge of the qualities of a sun or a star: for instance, dark blue would signify an intellectual sun; yellow, a buddhi sun.
“The difficulty in attempting to determine what specific ray or class any particular sun may belong by its color, is that our atmosphere affects colors very greatly as well as other things that come to us from the celestial bodies. The airy atmosphere surrounding our earth is a remarkable changer and a solvent to a certain extent. Our atmosphere is a transmuter as well as a transmitter. It deforms and actually changes the light––and therefore the sound––that comes to us from the planetary and solar bodies. Spectroscopic observation is by no means so reliable as has hitherto been supposed.
“All the different colors of the solar spectrum originate in the sun and are represented on our earth in the form of light, in the form of forces––forces in the sun, every color of which is the outflow of a distinct swabhva or individual energy, or solar logos. The sun is the vehicle of a divinity; whatever flows forth from it is rooted in the divine. There are seven (or twelve) solar forces or element-principles, and therefore seven (or twelve) swabhvas making up the grand swabhva of the sun. From these solar individualities, powers, forces, minor logoi, flow streams of substance-energy, combined in the light which we receive as daylight, white light. Pass this solar beam through {{Page aside|579}}a prism, and it will be broken up into its component colors. These seven rays of the spectrum are seven auric flows of vitality from the solar heart, and these swbhvic energies combine to make light as we perceive it. Not one of the colors in essence is superior to any of the others. But on the plane of material existence, and having in view the work which each of the effluvia from the sun does on this scale of matter, we are bound to make distinctions and say that tman is colorless, buddhi is yellow, kma is red, and so forth. Yet all are divine in origin.
“Every minutest portion of Infinity contains every essential element and force and swabhva that Infinity contains. Likewise, every subdivision or subplane derives its own repetitive septenary from the surrounding universe. The microcosm repeats the macrocosm . . .”<ref>[G. de Purucker, op. cit., 204-07]</ref>
<sup>5</sup>Saturninus, or Satornilus, is generally regarded as the founder of the Syrian Gnosis, somewhere about the end of the first and the beginning of the second century of our era. He is said to have taught at Antioch, but we have no information as to his nationality or any incidents of his life. He was especially distinguished for his rigid asceticism. Our information regarding him is derived mainly from Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, xxxv, and from Irenaeus’ summary presumably based on the lost Compendium of Justin.
<big>6</big>Basilides was one of the greatest exponents of the Gnosis. Of his life nothing is known beyond the fact that he taught at Alexandria. His date is entirely conjectural, but several independent authorities indicate the reign of Hadrian (A.D. 117-138) as the time when Basilides flourished. We have no information either on his nationality, but, whether a Greek, an Egyptian, or a Syrian, he was steeped in Hellenic culture, and was learned in the wisdom of Egypt.
Our main sources of information about Basilides are: 1) Hippolytus in his Philosophumena; 2) Clement of Alexandria in his Stromateis; 3) the lost work of Agrippa Castor as cited by Eusebius, and later copied by Irenaeus; and 4) the Acts of the Disputation of Archelaus and Mani. The great work of Hippolytus is the most valuable source of information extant for the reconstruction of the great metaphysical system of Basilides. It is possible that Hippolytus had before him Basilides’ Exegetica, supposed to have been one of twenty-four books on the Gospels written by him. It is probable that the Basilidean School of the Gnosis became eventually amalgamated with the Valentinian movement of the latter half of the second century.
Consult for a detailed outline of Basilides’ teachings: A Dictionary of Christian Biography (Wm. Smith & Henry Wace), s.v. Basilides; {{Page aside|580}}and G. R. S. Mead, Fragments of a Faith Forgotten (London & Benares, Theos. Publ. Society, 1900), pp. 253-83. A second edition of this work was published in 1960 by University Books, New Hyde Park, N.Y. It includes an excellent Introduction by Kenneth Rexroth and a valuable Index which adds greatly to the value of this work.
Behind the Gnôstic movement of a later period stands the commanding figure of Valentinus, universally acknowledged to have been the greatest of the Gnôstics. He has been recognized, even by his opponents, for his great learning and eloquence and for the widespread influence of his teachings upon contemporary thought. Even though we have no sure indication of the date of Valentinus himself, it may be conjectured to extend from about A.D. 100 to A.D. 180.
Valentinus was an Egyptian born at Phebonit‘ on the Egyptian coast, and from about A.D. 130 was teaching Greek science and literature in Alexandria. He must have been in close intimacy with Basilides, though he is said to have stated that a certain Theodas, an “apostolic man,” was his witness to the direct tradition of the Gnosis. It would appear from available sources of information that Valentinus determined to synthesize the Gnosis and to formulate a universal system of religio-philosophical thought.
In regard to his writings, besides the fact that they were numerous and his technical treatises difficult and abstruse, we know very little. The remarkable texts known as the Askew Codex (Pistis Sophia) and the Bruce Codex, now in the British Library and the Bodleian Library respectively, may have been either written or compiled by him, or at least by some other prominent Gnostic of the Valentinian movement. The same would apply to the Gospel of Truth discovered in 1945 in Coptic translation at Nag Hammadi and published as part of the Jung Codex in 1956.
Of the other leaders of the movement, mention must be made of Marcus, Secundus, Ptolemaeus, Heracleon, Axionicus and Bardesanes. Information concerning them is very scant.
As in the case of other great Gnostic teachers, our most reliable information about Valentinus is derived from Hippolytus’s Philosophumena. Consult also: Smith and Wace, Dictionary Of Christian Biography, s.v. Valentinus; Mead’s Fragments of a Faith Forgotten; and Notes, Comments and Diagrams bearing on the Pistis-Sophia, in the opening pages of Volume XIII of H.P.B.’s Collected Writings.
In The Secret Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 568, H.P.B. quotes from a text which she identifies in a footnote as: Valentinus’s Esoteric Treatise on the Doctrine of Gilgul. No definite information has ever been found regarding this piece of writing.
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