Traduction Masquer
Against the Valentinians

Chapter VII.--The First Eight Emanations, or Aeons, Called the Ogdoad, are the Fountain of All the Others. Their Names and Descent Recorded.

Beginning with Ennius, ¹ the Roman poet, he simply spoke of "the spacious saloons ² 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 storeys ³ 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, ⁴ 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." ⁵ Such storeys of the heavens you would imagine to be detached tenements in some happy isle of the blessed, ⁶ 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, Aion teleios (Perfect Aeon), but in respect of his personality, Proarche (Before the Beginning), E 'Arche (The Beginning), and sometimes Bythos (Depth), ⁷ 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 upon ⁸ 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 Veritas ⁹ (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 team ¹⁰ of the Valentinian set (of gods) ¹¹ the parent stock and origin of them all. For immediately when ¹² 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 cells ¹³ (so to speak) of the primordial Aeons, the fraternal nuptials of the Valentinian gods, the simple originals ¹⁴ of heretical sanctity and majesty, a rabble ¹⁵ --shall I say of criminals ¹⁶ or of deities? ¹⁷ --at any rate, the fountain of all ulterior fecundity.

Edition Masquer
Adversus Valentinianos

7

[1] primus omnium Ennius poeta Romanus “caenacula maxima caeli” simpliciter pronuntiavit elati situs nomine vel quia Iovem illic epulantem legerat apud Homerum. sed haeretici quantas supernitates supernitatum et quantas sublimitates sublimitatum in habitaculum dei sui cuiusque suspenderint extulerint expanderint, mirum est. [2] etiam creatori nostro Enniana caenacula in aedicularum disposita sint forma, aliis atque aliis pergulis superstructis et unicuique deo per totidem scalas distributis, quot haereses fuerint. meritorium factus est mundus. [3] Insulam Feliculam credas tanta tabulata caelorum nescio ubi. illic etiam Valentinianorum deus ad summas tegulas habitat. hunc substantaliter quidem αιωνα τελειον appellant; personaliter vero προπάτορα et προαρχήν etiam Bython — quod in sublimibus habitanti minime congruebat. innatum immensum infinitum invisibilem aeternumque definiunt, quasi statim probent esse si talem definiant qualem scimus esse debere. sic et ante omnia fuisse dicatur. [4] sed ut sit expostulo nec aliud magis in hiuismodi denoto quam quod post omnia inveniuntur qui ante omnia fuisse dicuntur, et quidem non sua. sit itaque Bythos iste infinitis retro aevis in maxima et altissima quiete, in otio plurimo placidae et — ut ita dixerim — stupentis divinitatis, qualem iussit Epicurus. [5] et tamen quem solum volunt, dant ei secundam in ipso et cum ipso personam, Ennonian, quam et Charin et Sigen insuper nominant. et forte accedunt in illa commendatissima quiete movere eum de proferendo tandem initio rerum a semetipso. hoc vice seminis in Sige sua velunt in genitablibus vulvae locis collocat. suscipit illa statim et praegnans efficitur et parit (utique silentio) Sige. et quem parit? Nus est simillimum Patri et parem per omnia. [6] denique solus hic capere sufficit immensam illam et incomprehensibilem magnitudinem Patris. ita et ipse Pater dicitur et initium omnium et proprie Monogenes; atquin non proprie siquidem non solus agnoscitur. nam cum illo processit et femina cui Veritas nomen. Monogenes quia prior genitus quanto congruentius Protogenes vocaretur. ergo Bythos et Sige, Nus et Veritas prima quadriga defenditur Valentinianae factionis, matrix et origo cunctorum. namque ibidem Nus simul accepit prolationis suae officium, emittit et ipse ex semetipso Sermonem et Vitam — [7] quae si retro non erat, utique nec in Bytho; et quale est ut in deo vita non fuerit! sed et haec suboles, ad initium universitatis et formati Pleromatis totius emissa, facit fructum: Hominem et Ecclesiam procreat. [8] habes ogdoadem, tetradem duplicem ex coniugationibus masculorum et feminarum, cellas ut ita dixerim primordialium Aeonum, fraterna conubia Valentinianorum, deorum, census omnis sanctitatis et maiestatis haereticae, nescio criminum an numinum turbam, certe fontem reliquae fecunditatis.