DeConick A.D

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SPIRITUAL AVATARS
drawn down from the transcendent realm into the erotic embrace. Human
joins human as light and spirit mingle. The babies conceived within
this holy embrace of spirits and angels were sure to be born with strong
spirits ready to receive the Gnostic message (Gospel of Philip NHC II.3
78.12–79.14).
Because the psychic Christians had not been initiated into this truth
about marriage, the Valentinians felt that it was better for the soulish
Christians to abstain from sex altogether, living in completely celibate
marriages or as single people. This was considered by some psychic Christians,
such as Irenaeus of Lyons, a double standard, and it was not particularly
liked.
The pneumatic Christians, however, insisted that these standards, double
or not, be maintained, because the consequences of sex are too vast.
Sex is existential, its creative power underscoring all of existence. When
sex goes out of bounds, when intentions are misdirected or desire is misplaced,
marriage is severed and the creative act goes awry.
It is the job of the pneumatic Christians to manage their marriages as a
sacrament and sex as a holy procreative activity. Only their erotic lovemaking
could repair the existential damage, through the conception and birth
of children with strong spirits. The birth of these special children is what
brought the spirit into play. Hidden within the child’s psyche, the spirit
could be awakened and redeemed, ritually transformed from tiny seeds
into full-fledged divinities.
At the end of time, these full-fledged spirits, along with Sophia, would
be escorted by their angel fiancés into the transcendent realm, the world
of Wholeness, which would open up to the newlyweds like a giant bridal
chamber. Salvation, then, is all about the restoration of God through marriage,
about journeying down (or should we say “up”) lovers’ lane.
Ptolemy Writes Flora
After Valentinus’s death, around 162 CE, his brilliant student Ptolemy
rose to prominence in Rome (see Rasimus 2010, 145–72). Although we
do not know much about Ptolemy as a person, we do know that he led a
Valentinian Christian congregation that sought to initiate psychic Christians
into the spiritual mysteries of God. We know this because Bishop
Epiphanius of Salamis, in the fourth century, records a letter that Ptolemy
wrote to a wealthy Christian woman, Flora. In it, he addresses questions