DeConick A.D

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SPIRITUAL AVATARS
soul and immortality is put on. Heracleon notes that the conversion process,
involving first Apostolic Catholic conversion and then pneumatic
conversion, is slow and requires signs, wonders, and a lot of persuasion.
Pagan Devils
The final type of response noted by Heracleon is utter rejection of Jesus.
Here we are talking about non-Christians, the pagans and Jews who refuse
to convert. These people Heracleon labels earthy or material. He finds references
to them in a literal reading of John 8:44, a verse we discussed at
length in chapter 5, when we learned about the Gnostic predisposition of
the Gospel of John (Origen, Commentary on John 20.168–170, 211–219).
In the original Greek of John 8:44, the Johannine author refers to
Jewish nonbelievers: “You are from the father of the devil.” According
to Heracleon, the reference to the devil’s father is a reference to YHWH,
the world creator and world ruler. Heracleon thinks that this verse proves
that some humans were created by YHWH from the same cloth, the same
material substance, that YHWH used to create the devil. This makes them
actual biological kin with the devil.
In this reading of the verse, Heracleon is trying to come to terms with
the people who Christians identified as apostates (traitors). These were
people who did not just refuse conversion but committed mutiny, who
were in the Christian ranks at one time but rebelled and left.
What about those people who weren’t apostates yet still didn’t want to
become Christian, who wished to maintain their pagan and Jewish connections?
Heracleon points to the second half of the same verse: “You
want to carry out the desires of your father.” Heracleon thinks this part
of the verse refers to those who choose not to convert, who have aligned
their intentions and actions with wickedness. They have allowed their
souls to become substantially similar to the devil, who is a liar like his father.
They are considered the devil’s adopted children because their souls
engage in debauchery and wantonness, intentional actions that make their
future conversion doubtful.
The Valentinians were not the staunch determinists that some of the
Apostolic Catholic Christians, such as Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons, considered
them to be. As we have seen, in the Valentinian scheme of things the