1 Earliest Rome

12.7 The Christians
Norea, daughter of Adam and Eve according to the Gnostics, leads to her
restoration to her proper place, the Pleroma ('Fullness', the sphere or perfection),
and union with the godhead. (3) While in the Pleroma, Norea has a saving
role in speaking 'words of Life'. (4) Here her (future) salvation is identified
with the salvation of her spiritual descendants, by integrating them into the
divine.
The treatise was composed in Greek, probably in the late second or third
centuries, but is known to us only in a Coptic translation of the fourth century
A.D. The text is heavily restored.
See further: Jonas (1963) 174-205 on other Gnostic cosmologies; Pagels
(1979) 57-83*; Filoramo (1990).
B. A. Pearson (ed.), NagHammadi Codices]X-x (Leiden, 1981) 94-9
(1) Father of the All, Ennoia of the Light, Nous dwelling in the heights above the regions
below, Light dwelling in the heights, Voice of Truth, upright Nous, untouchable Logos,
and ineffable Voice, incomprehensible Father!
(2) It is Norea who cries out to them. They heard, and they received her into her place
forever. They gave it to her in the Father of Nous, Adamas, as well as the voice of the
Holy Ones, in order that she might rest in the ineffable Epinoia, in order that she might
inherit the First Nous 1
which she had received, and that she might rest in the divine
Autogenes, and that she too might generate herself, just as [she] in like manner has
inherited the living Logos, and that she might be joined to all of the Imperishable Ones,
and [speak] with the Nous ol the Father.
(3) And [she began] to speak with words of Life, and she remained in the presence of
the Exalted One, possessing that which she had received before the world came into
being. She has the great Nous of the Invisible One, and she gives glory to her Father, and
she dwells within those who [exist] within the Pleroma, and she beholds the Pleroma.
(4) There will be days when she will [go to] the Pleroma, and she will not be in
deficiency, for she has the four holy helpers who intercede on her behalf with the Father
of All, Adamas, the one who is within all the Adams, because he possesses the thought of
Norea, who speaks concerning the two names which create a single name.'
1. The highest god in Platonism of the second century A.D.
2. The two names are Adamas and Norea, and their union constitutes the spiritual human.
1.2.7e(ii) Alleged immorality of'heretics'
The first 'heretic' whose beliefs Irenaeus expounded in detail was Valentinus,
who taught in Rome in the middle of the second centurv A.D. Irenaeus claims
that the followers of Valentinus performed un-Christian acts as a result of their
theological beliefs. Whatever the truth of his claim, It illustrates a concern
within Christianity to define 'proper' Christian behaviour.
See fttrrher: Vol. 1, 248, 284-5, 305-7, 371; 6.8b on sacrifice; Jonas (1963)
174-205; Pagels (1979) 33-56*; P. Brown (1988) 116-21 on asceticism.
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