PREFACE — CHAPTER III. | DE DOCTRINA LIBRI GRADUUM — II. DE CREATURIS.

original: Valentini, Gnosticorum celeberrimi... Famous are the words of Valentinus, the most celebrated of the Gnostics, who, as Clement of Alexandria testifies³, in a certain homily persuades with great eloquence that the world is an image of the living Aeon and gains honor through the name of that same one inscribed upon it: "For the invisible things of God work together for the faith of the creature." Another group of Gnostics, as Irenaeus testifies⁴, "said that the four elements of the world—fire, water, earth, and air—are an image of the higher quaternion, and their operations—that is, the hot, the cold, the moist, and the dry—are imaginary insofar as they enumerate the ten virtues as follows: seven corporeal ones revolving⁵, then after that the circle containing them, which they call the eighth heaven, and then after that the sun and the moon. Since these are ten in number, they say they are images of the invisible decad that proceeded from Logos and Zoe." No one fails to see that this whole speculation is founded on the trite axiom of the Book of Steps: visible things are an image of invisible things⁶. The principal difference between the speculations of the Gnostics and the Book of Steps consists in the fact that the Book of Steps studiously avoids cosmological speculations, and no traces of emanationalism are detected in it. On the other hand, the method of speculation is the same; for in both cases, one concludes from visible events to invisible facts by force of the axiom: visible things are an image of invisible things. Likewise, the Book of Steps also agrees with the Gnostics in that it posits the anakefalaiosin recapitulation of the human race effected by the Savior as the end and crown of redemption, concerning the separation of parts that were united against nature, so to speak, on account of Adam's sin⁷; just as, namely, the Gnostics posited the fall of the human race as the union of the soul with the body⁸: by a similar reason, the Book of Steps thinks that the sin of the first-formed beings was a defection from the invisible world to the visible world; and just as the Gnostics taught that true anakefalaiosin recapitulation was for the soul of man to be thoroughly liberated from the body and united to the Pleroma: the Book of Steps also says that redemption is nothing else than the restitution to the prior state of Adam, to be effected by means of "renunciation"; for in the Author's mind, no one is capable of receiving the Paraclete, as if entering into union with God, unless he has renounced the visible world and its goods and concupiscences. But if the Gnostics, from the axiom "visible things are an image of invisible things," drew, as if by divination, reckless conclusions lacking foundation concerning divine things, and thought that the emanations of Aeons, the fates of Sophia, and the descent of the human soul to the body were shadowed forth in the events of the Savior, the Book of Steps restricts this speculation to the fall of Satan and the human race, but by the entirely same method. St. Irenaeus, to be sure, thinking that iteration was included in the notion of anakefalaiosin recapitulation, finds some congruence between the life of Adam and of Christ, but he indignantly rejected the perverse rule of interpretation of the Gnostics, who strove to demonstrate their doctrines from numbers encountered in the Scriptures, since in his mind an argument is infirm if it can be transferred to many things, and the rule of faith should not be sought from numbers, but numbers from the rule¹.

7. Creation and creatures are not treated ex professo in the Book of Steps. No traces of the dualism of Gnostics or Manichaeans are detected in the whole work. The angelological doctrine of the Book is very thin. Some things are found here and there about angels, which however are of no moment for our matter. Concerning demons, and primarily their prince, Satan, it brings forward singular doctrines in Sermons XXI, 18 sq. and XXIII, 1-8. For it teaches that all creatures were created by God and were excellent by the nature of their condition², including Satan, who had been created along with the rest of the angels for the service of God³. That Iscariot is a type of Satan; for the Lord had chosen this disciple for Himself and, just like Satan, had placed him at His right hand⁴. Satan, however, having become a rebel, defected from God, just as Iscariot later did, and wished to produce his own image in heaven, which later...

¹ Ib. I, 1, 5 (Harvey I, 29); I, 1, 19 (Harvey I, 83). St. Epiphanius attributes the same use of Eph. 1:10 to the Valentinians, Haer. XXXI, 14.
² Iren. Adv. Haer. I, 1, 5 sq. (Harvey I, 26 sqq.). Ib. I, 1, 16-18 (Harvey I, 71 sqq.).
³ Strom. IV, 13, 1 (Ed. Stählin II, 287): "By as much as the image is lesser than the living face, by so much is the world lesser than the living Aeon; what then is the cause of the image? The greatness of the face provided to the painter the pattern, so that it might be honored through its name. For the form was not found authentically, but the name fulfilled what was lacking in the creation; and the invisible of God works together for the faith of the creature."
⁴ Haer. I, 10 (Harvey I, 164).
⁵ Hepta men somatika kykloeide i.e., disposed peripherally in the shape of a circle.
⁶ Cf. Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums [The History of Heresy in Early Christianity]. Leipzig, 1884, p. 300.
⁷ Cf. Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, I, 515.
⁸ According to Anz (Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnosticismus, in Texte u. Unters. ed. Gebhard and Harnack, vol. XV, fasc. 4, p. 27), the sum of Gnostic doctrine is expressed in the words: Auffahrt der Seelen [Ascent of the Souls], i.e., by dissolving the union of soul and body, man becomes capable of perfect redemption if he partakes of "knowledge" in this life.

¹ Adv. Haer. II, 37, 1 (Harvey I, 342 sq.). St. Irenaeus explains that the events of Christ and the Apostles ought not to be coupled to the number 30, but to an underlying argument or reason, and that the inquiry concerning God should not be accepted from numbers, syllables, and letters, as the Gnostics did. "For this is infirm because of their multifarious and various [ways], and because any argument whatever could today be equally fabricated by someone to take testimonies contrary to the truth from the things themselves, because they can be transferred; but they ought to adapt the numbers themselves, and those things which were done, to the underlying argument of truth. For the rule [is] not from numbers, but numbers from the rule: nor God from the facts, but those things which were done from God. For all things [are] from one and the same God."
² Serm. XXIII, 1, 8. — ³ Serm. XXIII, 2, 4. — ⁴ Serm. XXIII, 5.