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| The First Eight Emanations, or Æons, Called the Ogdoad, are the Fountain of All the Others. Their Names and Descent Recorded.
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Chapter
VII.—The First Eight Emanations, or Æons, Called the Ogdoad,
are the Fountain of All the Others. Their Names and Descent
Recorded.
Beginning with Ennius,6680
the Roman poet, he simply spoke of “the spacious saloons6681
| 6681 Cœnacula: dining
halls. | of heaven,”—either on account of
their elevated site, or because in Homer he had read about Jupiter
banqueting therein. As for our heretics, however, it is
marvellous what storeys upon storeys6682
| 6682 Supernitates
supernitatum. | and what
heights upon heights, they have hung up, raised and spread out
as a dwelling for each several god of theirs. Even our Creator has had
arranged for Him the saloons of Ennius in the fashion of private
rooms,6683
with chamber piled
upon chamber, and assigned to each god by just as many staircases as
there were heresies. The universe, in fact, has been turned into
“rooms to let.”6684
Such storeys of the
heavens you would imagine to be detached tenements in some happy isle
of the blessed,6685
| 6685 This is perhaps a fair
rendering of “Insulam Feliculam credas tanta tabulata
cœlorum, nescio ubi.” “Insula” is sometimes
“a detached house.” It is difficult to say what
“Felicula” is; it seems to be a diminutive of Felix. It
occurs in Arrian’s Epictetica as the name of a slave. | I know not where.
There the god even of the Valentinians has his dwelling in the attics.
They call him indeed, as to his essence, Αἰῶν
τέλειος (Perfect
Æon), but in respect of his personality, Προαρχή
(Before the Beginning), ῾Η
᾽Αρχή
(The Beginning), and sometimes Bythos
(Depth),6686
| 6686 We follow
Tertullian’s mode of designation all through. He, for the most
part, gives the Greek names in Roman letters, but not quite always. | a name
which is most unfit for one
who dwells in the heights above! They describe him as unbegotten,
immense, infinite, invisible, and eternal; as if, when they described
him to be such as we know that he ought to be, they straightway prove
him to be a being who may be said to have had such an existence even
before all things else. I indeed insist upon6687
| 6687 Expostulo: “I
postulate as a first principle.” | it
that he is such a being; and there is nothing which I detect in beings
of this sort more obvious, than that they who are said to have been
before all things—things, too, not their own—are found to
be behind all things. Let it, however, be granted that this Bythos of
theirs existed in the infinite ages of the past in the greatest and
profoundest repose, in the extreme rest of a placid and, if I may use
the expression, stupid divinity, such as Epicurus has enjoined upon us.
And yet, although they would have him be alone, they assign to him a
second person in himself and with himself, Ennoea (Thought),
which they also call both Charis (Grace) and Sige
(Silence). Other things, as it happened, conduced in this most
agreeable repose to remind him of the need of by and by producing out
of himself the beginning of all things. This he deposits in lieu
of seed in the genital region, as it were, of the womb of his Sige.
Instantaneous conception is the result: Sige becomes pregnant, and is
delivered, of course in silence; and her offspring is Nus (Mind), very
like his father and his equal in every respect. In short, he alone is
capable of comprehending the measureless and incomprehensible greatness
of his father. Accordingly he is even called the Father himself, and
the Beginning of all things, and, with great propriety, Monogenes
(The Only-begotten). And yet not with absolute propriety, since
he is not born alone. For along with him a female also proceeded, whose
name was Veritas6688
| 6688 Tertullian is
responsible for this Latin word amongst the Greek names. The
strange mixture occurs often. | (Truth). But
how much more suitably might Monogenes be called Protogenes (First
begotten), since he was begotten first! Thus Bythos and Sige, Nus
and Veritas, are alleged to be the first fourfold team6689
of the Valentinian set (of gods)6690
the parent stock and origin of them
all. For immediately when6691
Nus received
the function of a procreation of his own, he too produces out of
himself Sermo (the Word) and Vita (the Life). If this
latter existed not previously, of course she existed not in Bythos. And
a pretty absurdity would it be, if Life existed not in God!
However, this offspring also produces fruit, having for its mission the
initiation of the universe and the formation of the entire Pleroma: it
procreates Homo (Man) and Ecclesia (the Church). Thus you
have an Ogdoad, a double Tetra, out of the conjunctions of males and
females—the cells6692
(so to speak) of
the primordial Æons, the fraternal nuptials of the Valentinian
gods, the simple originals6693
of heretical
sanctity and majesty, a rabble6694
—shall I say
of criminals6695
or of
deities?6696
—at any rate,
the fountain of all ulterior fecundity.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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