DeConick A.D

236
SPIRITUAL AVATARS
Within the Valentinian community, the new initiates would have entered
the ranks of the spiritual Christians or pneumatics, leaving behind
their former Catholic status as psychic (soulish) Christians. The pneumatics
thought that they were the real Christians and the psychics were yet
Hebrews, still clinging to the God of the Jews. The psychics were viewed
as potential converts, not yet redeemed (Gospel of Philip NHC II.3 51.29–
31, 52.21–25).
When the converted pneumatics prayed in church “in the name of
the Father and the Son,” they understood that this prayer referred to the
transcendent Father and the Son, not to YHWH and his son, as their fellow
soulish Christians thought when they said the same prayer. Prayers,
scriptures, and rituals took on a double meaning for the spiritual Christians.
For the pneumatics, secret spiritual meaning replaced the common
psychic meaning (53.24–54.5).
This dual message is discussed in the Gospel of Philip (53.24–35), where
it is taught that names are deceptive because they can hide the truth of the
matter. When psychics hear the word God they are deceived with regard
to its true reference, thinking it refers to the biblical God when in fact
it refers to the transcendent God. The same goes for the words Father ,
Son , and Holy Spirit , and life , resurrection , and church . Congregants do
not perceive the correct referents for these words until they have come to
know what is correct.
For decades, the Valentinian churches operated with these dual levels.
They offered religious guidance to soulish Christians they had co-opted
from the Apostolic Catholic churches, alongside spiritual Christians they
had initiated into their mysteries. Their intent was to convert as many of
the psychic members of their congregations to pneumatics as possible so
that as many spirits could be redeemed as possible.
The Valentinians saw their system as more advanced than the Catholic
one, which operated to save only the soul. Besides, there were concrete
advantages to being initiated into the higher order—like sex, which the
psychics could not have and the pneumatics could.
Lovers’ Lane
Valentinus was a lover. This made him unique among Christians of his
era, who for the most part lived in chaste marriages or as single celibates.
The early Christians were suspicious of eroticism and sex because of its