DeConick A.D

238
SPIRITUAL AVATARS
Like Eve, we have been cut out of Adam’s side. We are two longing to
be one.
The answer to this horrifying dilemma involves correcting marriage
on all levels of existence, from the human to the transcendent. In the
wake of Sophia’s trauma, the divinities in the transcendent realm renew
their spousal relationships with each other. In celebration of their renewed
vows, they collaborate, generating collectively a new divinity that reflects
the very best of God. This new divinity is the male God Jesus.
Jesus’ mission is to descend into the lower realms and find the fallen
Sophia. She is to become his fiancée. At the end of time, he is the delegate
who will escort her back into the transcendent realm as his bride.
Likewise, the redeemed spirits will unite with their angel bridegrooms,
their divine avatars, who are waiting for them in the transcendent world.
The Valentinian teacher Theodotus envisioned this grand finale event,
complete with a wedding banquet. After the banquet, the bride and groom
undress and, naked, join each other in the bridal bed. They become one
syzygos , embracing each other in an eternal moment of consummation
(Clement of Alexandria, Excerpts of Theodotus 63.1–65.2).
Human marriage mirrors this sacred story of mishap and reconciliation.
According to the Valentinians, the marriage that degrades sex to he donism
results in separation and corruption. Hedonistic sex only leads to
trouble, especially because conceiving a child is always a possibility, if not
a probability. The ancient people did not have any reliable form of birth
control beyond abstinence and abortion. So sex meant conception. And
conception, they believed, was tied intimately to the thoughts and feelings
of the parents while they were engaged in the sex act. Because the
parents’ thoughts and feelings affected the actual formation of the fetus’s
body and soul, ancient people felt that lustful desires could cause severe
damage to the child.
To solve this problem, the Valentinians proposed that the pneumatic
Christians engage in a form of “sacred” or “pure” marriage. There were
parameters to this type of marriage. To start with, it was heterosexual
and monogamous. Liaisons outside of the marriage were strictly forbidden.
Sacred marriage meant that sex was performed intentionally between
spouses as an act of love. The sex act was a sacred moment when the
couple would raise their thoughts in prayer to the transcendent God.
This intentional orientation toward the sacred made the moment
transcendent. It was believed that the lovers’ angelic avatars would be