A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Mirrors

104 A Source Book for Ancient Church HistoryThe following passages appear to be taken from the samehomily of Valentinus. The pneumatics are naturally immortal,but have assumed mortality to overcome it. Death is the workof the imperfect Demiurge. The concluding portion, which isvery obscure, does not fit well into the Valentinian system.Cf. Hilgenfeld, op. cit., p. 300.[090]Valentinian in a homily writes in these words: “Ye are originallyimmortal, and ye are children of eternal life, and ye desired tohave death distributed to you, that ye may spend and lavish it,and that death may die in you and by you; for when ye dissolvethe world, and are not yourselves dissolved, ye have dominionover creation and all corruption.” 44 For he also, similarly withBasilides, supposes a class saved by nature [i.e., the pneumatics,v. infra], and that this different race has come hither to usfrom above for the abolition of death, and that the origin ofdeath is the work of the Creator of the world. Wherefore, also,he thus expounds that Scripture, “No one shall see the face ofGod and live” [Ex. 33:20], as if He were the cause of death.Respecting this God, he makes those allusions, when writing,in these expressions: “As much as the image is inferior to theliving face, so much is the world inferior to the living Eon. Whatis, then, the cause of the image? It is the majesty of the face,which exhibits the figure to the painter, to be honored by hisname; for the form is not found exactly to the life, but the namesupplies what is wanting in that which is formed. The invisibilityof God co-operates also for the sake of the faith of that whichhas been fashioned.” For the Demiurge, called God and Father,he designated the image and prophet of the true God, as thePainter, and Wisdom, whose image, which is formed, is to theglory of the invisible One; since the things which proceed froma pair [syzygy] are complements [pleromata], and those which44 Cf. the doctrine of redemption among the Marcosians, a branch of theValentinians, stated in Irenæus, Adv. Hær., I, 215.