Valentinus and his LOGOS idol

[7thMoon]

It's somewhat confusing of a chapter, but reading through it, what I get is the following.

Sophia wanted to create without union with a male aeon so that she could like the true God who created all on his own. This did not work because female celestials provide the substance but not the form. So it was a still birth of formless matter. She got depressed and the true God took pity and formed the Child, with all the aeons helping, and this is Jesus.

He seems to separate Jesus and the Logos, who sounds like a separate aeon who had children with Zoe.

Still don't quite get it but then I'd have to read the entire chapter and I'm just picking this up from the scrounging passages in the source you cited.

Epiphanius sums it up. Valentinus had a hard time, fortunately, believing in reincarnation. The Word needed 24 or 30 aeons i.e. permanencies to become Jesus. Valentinus was not like Cerdo. He also like the material world and fleshly activities as well.

I think even Irenaeus' summary is confusing. Be aware that the aeon image idols were anthropomorphic in extreme. It was already confusing before written down.

Such was Valentinus' influence that Irenaeus' parents and Ignatius was in the cult. His parents were listening to Polycarp talk about the father, and Ignatius was known to say our god, Jesus Christ.

 

[The_drake_]

Epiphanius sums it up. Valentinus had a hard time, fortunately, believing in reincarnation. The Word needed 24 or 30 aeons i.e. permanencies to become Jesus. Valentinus was not like Cerdo. He also like the material world and fleshly activities as well.

I think even Irenaeus' summary is confusing. Be aware that the aeon image idols were anthropomorphic in extreme. It was already confusing before written down.

Such was Valentinus' influence that Irenaeus' parents and Ignatius was in the cult. His parents were listening to Polycarp talk about the father, and Ignatius was known to say our god, Jesus Christ.

I just don't get from these passages how valentinus thought the Logos and Jesus were connected. Seem he thinks there are two separate entities from the way he speaks about them, unconnected except in the general sense that they are celestials.

 

[7thMoon]

I just don't get from these passages how valentinus thought the Logos and Jesus were connected. Seem he thinks there are two separate entities from the way he speaks about them, unconnected except in the general sense that they are celestials.

Perhaps, he thought he was Christ. I know Polycarp was a Merinthus, or knew the legend. He calls somebody a Cerinthus; Valentinus or Marcion? Probably Valentinus who was known for fornication. Marcion was thought to be an antichrist', because Polycarp lied and said he was the firstborn of Satan.

But he dead say Jesus was.

Fragment 3: From the 'Epistle to Agathopous'​

He was continent, enduring all things. (The risen) Jesus digested divinity: he ate and drank in a special way without excreting his solids. He had such a great capacity for continence that the nourishment within him was not corrupted, for he did not experience corruption.

Fragment 7: Valentinus' Vision of the Word​

I saw a newborn child, and questioned it to find out who it was. And the child answered me saying, "I am the Word"

And there is something about anthropos man or a man being God in some writings.

 

[7thMoon]

I just don't get from these passages how valentinus thought the Logos and Jesus were connected. Seem he thinks there are two separate entities from the way he speaks about them, unconnected except in the general sense that they are celestials.

Epiphanius 7,3 As I said, both he and his school call our Lord Jesus Christ Savior, Christ, Word, Cross, Conductor, Limit-Setter and Limit. (4) But they say he has brought his body down from above and passed through the Virgin Mary like water through a pipe. He has taken nothing from the virgin womb, but has his body from above, as I said.40 (5) They claim that he is not the original Word; nor the Christ after the Word, who is above among the aeons on high, but that this Christ has been emitted for no other reason than just41 to come and rescue the spiritual race that is from above.

 

[The_drake_]

Epiphanius 7,3 As I said, both he and his school call our Lord Jesus Christ Savior, Christ, Word, Cross, Conductor, Limit-Setter and Limit. (4) But they say he has brought his body down from above and passed through the Virgin Mary like water through a pipe. He has taken nothing from the virgin womb, but has his body from above, as I said.40 (5) They claim that he is not the original Word; nor the Christ after the Word, who is above among the aeons on high, but that this Christ has been emitted for no other reason than just41 to come and rescue the spiritual race that is from above.

I am not really interested in it other than understanding its antecedents. Gbosticism on the whole is just too much fluff.

 

[7thMoon]

@The_drake_ The influence on Christian orthodoxy is unmistakable.

 

[freelight]

Eusbius Ecclestical History 4.14.5 To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those who, down to the present time, have succeeded Polycarp, who was a much more trustworthy and certain witness of the truth than Valentinus and Marcion and the rest of the heretics. He also was in Rome in the time of Anicetus and caused many to turn away from the above-mentioned heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received from the apostles this one and only system of truth which has been transmitted by the Church.

---

Polycarp was also Unitarian.

But Eusbius I dont think is to be trusted fully as some shennanigins may show, also he was 're-writing' (also redacting where needed to fit his narrative) as it were his own 'spin' on 'church history' so do you think his writings are free of 'polemics' or 'biases' - come again. In any case Valentinian Gnosticism was a trailblazer and made most headway within the greater church world in a time where greater diversity to some degree was allowed 'wiggle room'. The complex hierarchies of Deity aside (Sophia and the eons, etc.), one can still learn something from the mythology, as in any other religious motifs, cosmology or 'systems'. Christianity had/has her own evolution with her accompanying 'theology' and its various 'Christologies', so on one level its pretty much a doctrinal 'buffet', asides from some of the universal themes common to most religions. Sure, primary religious principles and spiritual values hold, while some liberties are allowed in non-essentials. At the end of the day, all you have is your own 'gnosis' and nobody elses....all you have is your own personal religious experience of 'God' however you realize or interpret that


-----------------o

 

[freelight]

@The_drake_ The influence on Christian orthodoxy is unmistakable.

Perhaps, but the so called 'orthodox' form of 'Christianity' was fighting against those so called 'heresies' in order to craft its own perfect 'creed' or 'truth' (orthos)...so maybe in that effort thay were just making more religious 'idols' but unaware of it - the 'logos' is what it is in greek and the philosophical concept of it holds primacy IMO, to which John used in his prologue to history's grin. As far as Christ's ministry, he can be alluded to as the 'logos' in so many ways as that word 'means' ...different aspects and nuances. This becomes even more broad in metaphysics, as we are all aspects of the divine logos, creative expressions thereof, fulfilling some original plan, logic, purpose or direction from Source. We are all individual logos-streams


--------------o

 

[7thMoon]

But Eusbius I dont think is to be trusted fully as some shennanigins may show, also he was 're-writing' (also redacting where needed to fit his narrative) as it were his own 'spin' on 'church history' so do you think his writings are free of 'polemics' or 'biases' - come again. In any case Valentinian Gnosticism was a trailblazer and made most headway within the greater church world in a time where greater diversity to some degree was allowed 'wiggle room'. The complex hierarchies of Deity aside (Sophia and the eons, etc.), one can still learn something from the mythology, as in any other religious motifs, cosmology or 'systems'. Christianity had/has her own evolution with her accompanying 'theology' and its various 'Christologies', so on one level its pretty much a doctrinal 'buffet', asides from some of the universal themes common to most religions. Sure, primary religious principles and spiritual values hold, while some liberties are allowed in non-essentials. At the end of the day, all you have is your own 'gnosis' and nobody elses....all you have is your own personal religious experience of 'God' however you realize or interpret that


-----------------o

[Eusebius] doesn't state or speculate if Irenaeus and/or Ignatius is a Valentinian. Irenaeus is post-Walentinian.

 

[7thMoon]

My rendition of John 1:1-5

In the beginning it came a word, and a word it came with a God, and the God it came. A word another it came in the beginning with a god. Everything through this, it happened and without it, not by anything it happened which has happened.

In it, the life it came, and a life it came a light of some anthropoi. And a light lightens in a darkness; and a darkness a-so this covers not.

 

[freelight]

My rendition of John 1:1-5

In the beginning it came a word, and a word it came with a God, and the God it came. A word another it came in the beginning with a god. Everything through this, it happened and without it, not by anything it happened which has happened.

In it, the life it came, and a life it came a light of some anthropoi. And a light lightens in a darkness; and a darkness a-so this covers not.

Wonderful As we've shared elsewhere on 'logos', it doesnt have to be a 'person', as it is referred to as an 'it',......the word was the divine generation of God's mind, his creative thought, plan and logic expressing thru creation and the plan of salvation. All minds operate thru the medium of 'logos'

'God' is Light as well, so the 'logos' is a creative expression of the 'light' of 'God',..... we are the 'light' of 'God' and share a divine sonship with the Firstborn logos. All creative consciousness is evidence of the 'logos' of infinite intelligence.

In-joy!


-------o

 

[7thMoon]

Wonderful As we've shared elsewhere on 'logos', it doesnt have to be a 'person', and it is referred to as an 'it',......the word was the divine generation of God's mind, his creative thought, plan and logic expressing thru creation and the plan of salvation. All minds operate thru 'logos'!
'God' is Light as well, so the 'logos' is a creative expression of the 'light' of 'God',......and we are the 'light' of 'God'. All creative consciousness is evidence of the 'logos' of infinite intelligence.

In-joy!


-------o

Two logoi are mentioned in this passage.