The Valentinian Restoration - "Restoration of the Gnosis"

Today is the commemoration of Restoration Day, the day when the Assembly of the Pleroma was founded by Jules Doinel with the mandate of Sophia Achamoth and the Aeon Jesus.

from https://sites.google.com/site/alexandriangnosticchurch/about-us/restoration-of-the-gnosis:

RESTORATION OF THE GNOSIS

DECREE OF THE SYNOD

The Holy Gnostic Synod enacts:

FIRST ARTICLE

The re-establishment of the hierarchy permits the restoration of Gnostic symbolism.

ART. II
The CONSOLAMENTUM, the BREAKING OF BREAD and the
APPAREILLAMENTUM of the Albigensian Assembly are re-established.

ART. III
Bishops and their coadjutors, alone, can confer the CONSOLAMENTUM.

ART. IV
All Pneumatics, Perfecti or S∴I∴ can perform the BREAKING OF BREAD.

ART. V
The APPAREILLAMENTUM is the exclusive privilege of the Patriarchal throne.

ART. VI
L’Initiation will publish these three rituals incessantly.

ART. VII
The Martinist Order is declared to be Gnostic in essence.
All S∴I∴ take rank in the class of the Perfecti.

ART. VIII
The Gospel according to John is the only Gnostic Gospel.

Given in Paris under the seal of the V.H. Gnostic Synod,
this 28th day of the seventh month of year IV of the Restoration of the Gnosis.

+The Gnostic Patriarch, Primate of the Albigeois, Bishop of Montségur.
+The Bishop of Toulouse.
+The Bishop of Béziers.
+The Sophia of Warsaw.
+The coadjutor of His Grace the Patriarch, Bishop of Milan.
+The coadjutor of Toulouse, Bishop of Concorezzo.
+The Bishop Elect of Avignon.

By mandate of His Grace and the V.H. Synod.
Deacon Referendum

EXECUTORY

The Very H. Pleroma invoked, we order this Decree of
the Very Holy Gnostic Synod executed in all Assemblies.

TAU VALENTIN,
Gnostic Patriarch,
Primate of the Albigeois,
Bishop of Montségur.



GNOSTIC CATECHISM

PUBLISHED BY MANDATE OF HIS GRACE THE PATRIARCH
AND BY ORDER OF THE VERY HIGH SYNOD

Decree of the Very High Gnostic Synod for the publication of the Catechism:
“The Very High Gnostic Synod, reunited in Paris, the 10th day of the 7th month
of the Vth year of the Restoration of the Gnosis, enacts: The Gnostic Catechism,
containing three parts and preceded by a mandate of His Grace the Patriarch,
will be published unceasingly and throughouth the Darkness of the Kenoma.
So Will the Holy Eons."

“By decree of the Very High Synod, The Great Referendum of the Seal,
Bishop of Concorezzo and Coadjutor of the Bishop of Toulouse, Commander
of the Order of the Dove of the Paraclete" +Paul

Imprimateur:
Tau Valentin

PRELIMINARIES

FIRST CHAPTER
THE CONFESSION OF FAITH

D. – Are you a Gnostic?
R. – Yes, I am a Gnostic.
D. – What is Gnosis?
R. – Gnosis is illuminative science.
D. – What do you mean by that?
R. – I mean the science of the Divine, of the Human and the Natural, Nature, or of the Infinite with the Finite.
D. – Then what is a Gnostic?
R. – It is someone who possesses the science of divine things.
D. – Is this Science in opposition to Faith?
R. – Science is opposed to blind Faith, but not to Faith that is reflective, profound and reasoned.
D. – Is this definition contrary to the teachings of the Apostles?
R. – No, because Paul wanted the Corinthians to grow in faith, speech, sciene and goodwill (2, Corinth., VII–7)1 and Peter adds Faith to Science (2, Peter, 1-5).
D. – What do you conclude from this?
R. – I conclude that a real Gnostic possesses “reasoned and scientific knowledge of divine things”, which is to say, knowledge of the Absolute and manifestations of the Absolute.
D. – Please recite the profession of faith?
R. – I confess the doctrine of Emanation and Salvation through Gnosis.
D. – This confession, accompanied by morals, provides Salvation?2
R. – Yes, by the grace of the Holy Eons.

FIRST PART
ORIGINS

CHAPTER II - THE ORIGIN, OR SIMON MAGUS

D. – Tell us of the origins of Gnosis.
R. – Eternal as is Truth, Gnosis appeared in Time and Space, in a concrete format, following the astral descent of Jesus, the Flower of the Very Holy Pleroma.
D. – Where and how?
R. – In Samaria, after the ascension, through the revelation of Simon Magus.
D. – Tell us of this great man.
R. – The Magus of Samaria is the first doctor of the Gnosis; his teaching contains the seed of the magnificent doctrine that is the most luminous expression of the Absolute.
D. – Did he create Gnosis?
R. – No, it is the Truth and, therefore, it is uncreated; he but unveiled it.
D. – Then was it unknown before him?
R. – Yes, in its western format; but the Orient had taught it in its esoteric format. It is, was and will be the mystical garment of the Truth.
D. – Where was the Magus born?
R. – In Gitta, Samaria.
D. – What name did the revealer bear?
R. – He bore the name the Great Virtue of God.
D. – By whom was he assisted?
R. – By a sublime woman, named Helen, whom he met in Tyr, tearing her away from infamous places and delivering her from the tyranny of evil and connections to the Fall.
D. – Was Simon a scientist?
R. – Yes, he possessed Plato's science, the gifts of oratory and poetry. He knew anatomy. He discovered the law of blood circulation. Finally, he was a great theurgist and thaumaturge.
D. – Is this all?
R. – He had a simple and right soul and an incontestable honesty.
D. – What was his conduct in view of the Apostles?
R. – Already famous at the time of the first Christian missions, he asked for baptism from the deacon Phillip, as a superior initiation.
D. – How do you explain his conduct vis-à-vis Cephas [Peter]?
R. – In the demand that he made to Peter to confer upon him the Holy Spirit by the impositions of hands, he never saw a conflict with his principles. He didn't offer money to buy the Holy Spirit, as some ill-intentioned individuals have assterted; but he offered the legal price of initiatic secrets common at the time. He, himself, possessed the Spirit to an eminent degree.
D. – What did he say to Peter who spoke ill of him?
R. – He offers him these touching words of goodness and humility: “Pray for me so that nothing of what you accuse me takes place.”
D. – What was Helen for Simon?
R. – She was the symbol of pain, the living picture of the fall of thought into matter. He loved her as nobly as such a man could love.
D. – Was Helen worthy of this love?
R. – Yes, incontestably, she was worthy of it by her faith, her devotion, her marvelous intelligence and her deep attachment to the revealer.
D. – How did the Magus of Samaria die?
R. – No one knows anything precisely about his death. The fables that are told about his life are of apocryphal origin; what gave rise to these fables is the hatred of narrow-minded Christians as well as his gift of levitation.
D. – Did Simon compose any works?
R. – Yes, he wrote the Antirrhetica and Apophasis Megalê.

CHAPTER III* - THE DOCTRINE OF SIMON MAGUS

D. – What does Simon's Gnosis try to explain?
R. – Everything: God, Man and the World: The trilogy of synthesis.
D. – What was there in the beginning?
R. – Fire. God, said Moses, is an all-consuming fire. This fire, very different from the elementary fire that is only its symbol, has a visible nature and a mysterious nature. This secret, occult nature conceals itself in appearance. Likewise, this appearance conceals itself in the occult. The invisible is visible to the Spirit. But ignorant people cannot distinguish spirit in form because they do not know the laws of correspondence.
D. – In idealistic philosophy, what would this fire be?
R. – The Intelligible and the Sensible, Power and Action, Idea and Speech.
D. – What is Matter?
R. – It is the outward manifestation of the primordial fire.
D. – What is Spirit?
R. – It is the interior manifestation of the primordial fire.
D. – Then what does this fire contain?
R. – It contains the Absolute and the Relative, the Informal and the Formal, Spirit and Matter, the One and the Many, God and the emanations of God.
D. – What can one conclude from this?
R. – That this fire, the eternal cause, develops itself by emanation, that it eternally ‘becomes’. But, while developing itself, it is stable, it is permanent, it remains. It is the One that Is, Was, and Will Be, Immutable, Infinite, Absolute, Substance.
D. – Why does it develop itself?
R. – Because, while it is unchangeable, it is not inert; the Infinite can act since it is Intelligence and Reason3; because God passes from Power to Action.
D. – Develop this evolution.
R. – Thought has an expression which is Speech, the Logos (Ed. Note – in French, the word used is “Verbe” which means ‘word’, i.e. ‘Logos’, but also implies the above-mentioned innate action of the Fire of God also being the same word for ‘verb’, e.g. ‘TO BE’). So the Intelligible names itself, and in naming itself it acts, evolves, emanates, becomes. While pronouncing a thought, this Intelligence unites the moments of this thought; it binds its thoughts to one another through Reason. And, just as from One comes Two, since One becomes two by emanating, this fire emanates by two, by couple, by Syzygy. And of these two, one is active and the other passive; one is masculine and the other is feminine; one is ‘Him,’ the other is ‘Her’. These emanations by couple are called Holy Eons by the Gnosis.
D. – Name the Eons.
R. – God emanated six Eons: Spirit and Thought (Nο?ς and ‘Επιυοια), Voice and Name (Φωνη and ‘Ονομα), Reasoning and Reflection (Λογισμος and Ενθυμησις). And God was entirely in power in each of these Eons.
D. – What did the Eons do?
R. – To achieve God, the Eons emanated new beings. The divine law of Analogy required it thus. These couples continued therefore, masculine - feminine, activate - passive; it is the ladder of the supreme Being that Jacob glimpsed in a dream whle he slept with his head laid upon the sacred stone of Beth - El, under the starry heavens of the desert. The Eons ascend and descend the mysterious echelons by couple. They form an uninterrupted chain that unwinds its rings in the anabasis and the catabasis, from God to the world, from the world to God. They are two, male and female, a divine couple, angel-women, associated forms, united thoughts; they compose the framework of Spirit and of Matter, achieving God in things and bringing those things back to God. And the Law that directs them, binds them, lowers them and raises them is the primordial Fire: it is Love. Such is the first or the divine world.

* To answer the various questions put by our readers, let us say that the Catechism we publish today was recovered in the papers that Valentin II (Jules Doinel) left us. It is a fragmentary work that could not constitute a complete body of doctrine and on which has place to make some reserves. [Note from the Writing of the journal ‘La Gnose’, as are, it seems, all the following].

CHAPTER IV - CONTINUATION OF SIMON'S DOCTRINE

D. – Tell us of the intermediate world.
R. – Six Eons, a reflection of the six superior Eons, populate it. They bear the same names.
D. – What does Simon call the second world?
R. – Incomprehensible air; the Father or Unity lives there. It evolves as Fire developed itself in the divine world. It manifests itslef by its Thought, Epinoia. It is also called Silence.
D. – What happened?
R. – Epinoia, the female Eon of Silence, emanated the Angels and the Powers from which proceded the third world, the one in which we live. –These Angels wanted to hold it captive; hence the Fall that requires Redemption.
D. – From where does Mankind come?
R. – Mankind is emanated by one of these Angels, the Demiurge, the God of the Jews and Christians.
D. – What became of Epinoia?
R. – Thought, held captive by the Angels, was brought back by her celestial instinct and she longed evermore for Silence, the Father that she had left. The Angels kept her, making her suffer. They locked her in the prison of the human body. This is where the divine exile began, and thus, through the centuries, her painful exodus of successive transmigrations. It is the fall of Thought into matter; it is decay; it is the origin of evil.
D. – What did this bring about?
R. – For all decay, Redemption is necessary. Epinoia reincarnates through the ages, from woman to woman, like a fragrance that passes from one vase to another. This is how Simon met Helen, who was the incarnation of Thought, called Ennoia, he loved her, transfigured her, saved her, and applied the parable of the sheep that was lost and then found to her.
D. – Summarize this.
R. – As Simon saved Helen from supreme degradation, the Savior, sent by the Father, descended into the world in an astral form and delivered Thought from the tyranny of the unjust Angels. In Judea, he is called Jesus and the Son. In Samaria, he was called Simon and the Father. For future races, he will be the Holy Spirit for which we wait, God's Great Virtue, the Woman who is to come.

CHAPTER V - BASILIDES

D. – Who is the second doctor of the Gnosis?
R. – It is the Syrian Basilides, who, around the year 130, taught in Alexandria.
D. – Condense his doctrine.
R. – His first principle is that of the pure Being, identical with himself, the indeterminate Essence, Spirit and Matter at the same time, absolute potentiality.
D. – What does he call it?
R. – The Ineffable Father. He is comprised of three filiations: the Ogdoade, the Hebdomade, the Hylic or Matter.
D. – What is the Ogdoade?
R. – It is the divine world, governed by the supreme Archon.
D. – What is the Hebdomade?
R. – It is the intermediate World, governed by the second Archon.
D. – What is the Hylic?
R. – It is the dark region wherein chaos reigns.
D. – What do we call the combination of these three worlds?
R. – Abraxas. It is a successive series of 365 worlds or heavens.4
D. – Explain evolution and involution?
R. – God, having spread out throughout the multiplicity, finally recovers himself and brings everything back with Him into the Unity. Man is the breakpoint between the two movements.
D. – How is Redemption achieved in the three worlds?
R. – In the divine world, Protos Christos, son of the superior Archon, saves the Eons. In the intermediate world, Deuteros Christos saves Spirits. In the Hylic, the terrestrial Christos, son of the Eon Myriam, saves Men.
D. – Of what nature is Jesus composed?
R. – Of an astral body taken from the Hylic, of a psyche taken from the intermediate world, of a νους or Spirit received from the World of the divine.
D. – Recall for us the great words of Basilides.
R. – “Jesus was the first fruits of the distinction of Essences; He is the model of a true Gnostic, because he saves us by illuminating us.”

CHAPTER VI - VALENTINUS

D. – Who is Valentinus?
R. – The third and greatest doctor of the Gnosis, Simon Magus’s successor on the Patriarchal Throne, the Father and the ancestor of our Assembly, the most harmonious and most eloquent of the Masters.
D. – What have you to say about him?
R. – His doctrine, which is ours, will be developed later on. We will speak solely of the man and his influence.
D. – Tell us of the man.
R. – Valentinus, we are told by his adversary Saint Epiphany, was born in Egypt in the Nome of Phténotite, and frequented the schools of Alexendria, where he learned Platonic metaphysics.
D. – What testimonies of him are there by the Fathers of the church?
R. – Saint Jerome calls him “the very scholarly”; the author of the Dialogue against the Marcionites sees him as a superior mind5; Tertullien praises his profound knowledge of the theories of the great Plato; Clement of Alexandria fights him like a dangerous and almighty adversary.
D. – In what time period did Valentinus live?
R. – The scholar Amélineau, whose learning has provided much service to the Gnosis, established that our famous doctor and Father came to Rome between the year 135 and 141 of the Christian era. He would have been about forty years old then; and he died around the age of 70 years, full of grace, virtue and wisdom.
D. – Where did Valentinus die?
R. – On the island of Cyprus, between the years 160 and 170.
D. – Where did Valentinus teach?
R. – He taught in Alexandria, Rome, and in all of Egypt.
D. – What did Valentinus say?
R. – He said that he was a disciple of Theodas, himself a disciple of the apostle Paul, and that he took his doctrine from the esoteric teachings bequeathed by Jesus to his apostles.
D. – What works did Valentin leave?
R. – The Letters to Agathopodus, of which we possess a fragment, homilies, a Speech on Friendship, psalms, and a dissertation on the origin of evil, of which Origen preserved an eloquent passage. His capital work was titled: Sophia.
D. – What authors spoke of Valentinus?
R. – Saint Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullien, Philastrius, Theodoret, the book ‘Philosophumena’ and Saint Epiphany.
D. – Cite some passages from our Master.
R. – “God was love; but love without a beloved [aimless love] is no longer love. This is why he emanated the object to be loved.” This magnificent passage contains the germ of the gnostic doctrine par excellence: emanation.
D. – Continue.
R. – “In the Uncreated, all things co-exist. In what is generated, ‘it is the feminine that provides the substance; it is the masculine that ‘gives shape to the substance.’”
D. – Go on.
R. – “The Psychic man is in part a fool, because he is under ‘the power of the Demiurge.’”
D. – Give us the magnificent passage reproduced by Clement of Alexandria in his Stromateis [Miscellanies]?
R. – “There is only one good Being, whose power is manifest through His only son. The heart, indeed, is the palace of a great number of impure spirits. The heart is a desecrated inn, soiled by foul travelers. These are demons. But, when the Father, who is Good, deigns to visit, the heart is sanctified; it is illuminated by the clarity of the Pleroma; it shines like a star. Happy is he that possesses such a heart! He will see God.”
D. – Continue.
R. – “After Man's creation, the Logos placed an angelic seed in its soul. This spiritual seed, put in the soul by Jesus, the Flower of the Pleroma, stops it from being annihilated.”
D. – What can you conclude from this?
R. – That Hylics will utterly perish: it is conditional Immortality.
D. – Recite for us a passage of a homily from Valentinus to his disciples?
R. – You are immortal from the beginning (απ′αβχης).
“–You are the children of Eternal Life. If you wanted death to spread its empire upon you, it would be to destroy and abolish it, making it die in you and by you. You dissolve the world and are not dissolved by it. You dominate all creatures and corruption.”
D. – To whom does this passage apply?
R. – It applies to Pneumatics and to the Elect.
D. – What did Valentinus call Gnosis?
R. – The mystery hidden for centuries. To rend the veil and to reveal this mystery, Jesus was born of the Virgin Miriam.
D. – What happiness does Valentinus promise to Pneumatics?
R. – “They will be placed in the world of the Lord, the Ogdoade. The feast of the marriage of the lamb will take place there. They will receive angels for spouses, and their love will be eternal.”
D. – Finish by reciting Valentinus’ beautiful passage on Evil for us.
R. – “I cannot find the strength within myself to say that God is the author and the creator of Evil. Who can have such thoughts about Him? He is good, and nothing evil is in Him. He wants those who aspire to ascend unto Him to be good like Him. Evil was inherent in the Hylic when it was neither created, nor formed, but confused in chaos.”

CHAPTER VII - THE GNOSTIC SCHOOLS

D. – Are there other Gnostic Schools?
R. – Yes.
D. – Name the main schools.
R. – The schools of Menander the Samaritan, Saturnilus of Antioch, Carpocrates and Marcellina, Marcion, Bardesanes the Syrian, and finally the school of Justin and the branches of the Naasene school or the Ophites.
D. – What general theme unites all these Schools?
R. – It is the great doctrine of emanation.
D. – Does the Valentinien reproach these Schools?
R. – No, he admires them and venerates them as different aspects of the same Truth.
D. – Then are all Gnostics brothers?
R. – Yes, all Gnostics are brothers, all admit the same fundamental dogmas, and confess the Holy Eons.
D. – And you, what are you?
R. – I am Valentinian Gnostic. I have the Pleroma for my Father, Christos for my Savior, Simon and Valentinus as doctors, Helen and Sophia for moral support, and I wait for the advent of Our Lady Pneuma Hagion, the eternal Feminine.
D. – Recite the Valentinian prayer.
R. – Beati vos, Aeones, Vera vita vividi, Vos Emanationes, Pleromatis lucidi, Adeste, Visiones, Stolis albis candidi.
[O Ye Blessed Aeons, Animate by the True Life, O Ye Emanations, The Pleroma fills thee with Light, Come, Ye Sacred Visions, Shining in Garments of White.]
D. – Recite the angelic prayer.
R. – Ave candidum Lilium fulgidi semperque tranquilli Pleromatis, Rosaque praefulgida coelicae amoenitatis, de qua nasci et de cujus lacte pasci Jesus, Flos Aeonum, voluit, divinis infusionibus animos nostros pasce. Amen.
[Hail, shining white Lily of the gleaming and ever tranquil Pleroma, and ever brilliant Rose of celestial delightfulness, from whom is born and from whose milk is nourished Jesus, the Flower of the Aeons, who willed that our souls be nourished by the showers of thy divinity. Amen]
D. – Recite the prayer of the Pneuma Hagion.
R. – Rorate, coeli, desuper et nubes pluant Justam. Rorate, coeli, desuper et nubes pluant Pulchram. Rorate, coeli, desuper et nubes pluant Bonam.
[Let thy dew descend upon us, and may Justice rain from the clouds in heaven above. Let thy dew descend upon us, and may Beauty rain from the clouds in heaven above. Let thy dew descend upon us, and may Goodness rain from the clouds in heaven above.]
D. – What Church do you confess?
R. – The Holy Gnostic Assembly directed by the Holy Spirit that is feminine, governed by His Grace the Patriarch and the Very High Synod of Bishops and Sophias.

VALENTIN II.
SECOND PART

THE DOCTRINE

We must recall here that this Catechism is only a piecemeal work, and that we are only publishing it as the document is titled. The second part, containing the exposition of the Doctrine, which had been begun by S. G. Paul, Bishop of Concorezzo, remains incomplete; the publications henceforth are the few chapters that have been written. As for the third part, which had to be about the Church, had never even been started. We thought that it would be preferable to leave this Catechism in the state we found it, rather than to complete it ourselves, because our thought could not have been the exact continuation of those of its first authors. [(Note from the journal ‘La Gnose’). The chapters that follow are the work of Paul Sédir (Yvon Le Loup). (N.D.E.)]

CHAPTER VIII - THE OGDOADE

D. – The precision, the heightened level and purity of your answers have peaked my interest and provoked my admiration. Once an investigator, I have become a disciple; once a scrutinizer, I have made myself into a respectful listener. O Initiate, I await from you the light that will illuminate, if you so desire to enlighten me.
R. – Never will the very holy Gnosis be refused to the sons of Seth. Direct your heart’s attention toward me; impose silence upon the voices in your mind; listen with the soul; abandon yourself to me as a child in his mother’s arms; the merciful Eons give this unworthy minister Strength and Goodness. – I await your questions.
D. – What was there in the Beginning?
R. – In the beginning, Nothing lay asleep. It is the Silence; It is the Abyss6. It is imperishable, without action, without beginning, without end; it is alone, omnipresent; imperceptible, indefinite: such is the beginning.
D. – Develop, I pray, these ideas.
R. – It is inexpressible; it is what is inside and above knowledge, the seeker of knowledge and even the ability to know. It sleeps lightly outside the spectator, the spectacle and the view; it is, however, in them; it has no attributes. It is in its manifestations; it is outside of them; it is the immovable motor; it knows neither pleasure, nor pain, but it produces them. It is at the center; it is the infinite; it is the Zero. It is Silence and the Abyss.
D. – What does this Primordial Essense (Proarchê) contain?
R. – Fire and Light.
D. – What do you mean by Fire?
R. – Fire. It is the center unfurling into the circumference; it is a harsh and austere generation, and, at the same time, an extremely dry and scorching attraction. It is the eternal Hunger and Thirst of the Abyss. It is mute and does not possess the true life, because, while radiating and absorbing at the same time, it cannot find its expansion except in the second principle, which is Light.
D. – What do you mean by Light?
R. – It is the absolute manifestation of life. It is produced by the radiating exaltation of Fire that succeeded in overwhelming its attractive force. It is the source of the living water of impenetrable Love, the eternal matrix from whence proceeds all generation. Fire and Light have existed for all eternity, and remain distinct even while containing each other.
D. – What are you calling ‘Eons’?
R. – Eons are the creative powers of the Primordial Essence. These are the balancing forces emanated from the Propator.
D. – How are Eons produced?
R. – Eons are produced by the individualization of the faculties of the Abyss. Around these central points, they constitute themselves by means of their own abilities, to constantly receive, always in an equal fashion, the superior impulse, and to transmit, according to the same harmonious norm, this impulse to the lower worlds.
D. – How do Eons emanate from the Abyss?
R. – By syzygies or Couples. The feminine Eons produce the substances that are, at the same time, unformed by the male Eons.
D. – Then what are the particular virtues of the Eons?
R. – The virtues of the Eons are Perpetuity and Immortality; because their essence is always to be like unto themselves.
D. – What is the order of their emanation?
R. – In the beginning, from the ineffable Silence, are emanated: the Abyss and Thought–Bythos and Ennoïa–; then Spirit and Truth–Noûs and Alêtheïa–; this sublime quaternary manifested in the Word and Life–Logos and Zôé–; in Man and the Assembly–Anthrôpos and Ekklêsia–7.
D. – Can you unveil for me the nature of these beings?
R. – I cannot; your spirit is still too weak to bear this brilliant light; and the words of man poorly express the absolute relations of these Powers. Pray that the Eons illuminate the eye of your soul in the silence of Contemplation. If your prayer is sincere enough, and your desire great enough, they will answer you.

CHAPTER IX - THE DECADE

D. – The Eons that you named, are they the only ones that exist?
R. – No; they form, in the Very Holy Pleroma, only the Ogdoade, the first diathesis of the absolute.
D. – How does the hierarchy of the Eons continue?
R. – By the Decade and the Dodecade.
D. – What is the Decade?
R. – The Decade is the reunion of five Syzygieses emanated by the Word and Life in thanksgiving to the Propator.
D. – What are the Eons of which the Decade is composed?
R. – They are: Bythos (the Deep), and Mixis (the Mixture); Agératos (That which does not age), and Hénôsis (Union); Autophyès (That which exists by itself), and Hêdonè (Pleasure); Akinêtos (That which is immovable), and Synkrasis (the Mixture); Monogénès (the Only Son), and Makaria (Bliss).
D. – What do these names represent?
R. – These names represent the collective intiates, the souls of life and the rays of the Abyss. They signify the powers of Logos and Zôé manifest; they are an indication the abilities of Sigèe. You will see, henceforth, their radiance to propagate itself unto the confines of the Void. They fill the three Worlds with their splendors; in them and by them live all visible and invisible creatures.
D. – Then what are qualities of the Word?
R. – The Word is the Only Son of the Father. It was the first in the Abss. “It was in God”, which is why it doesn't age; “it is God”, which is why it exists by itself; finally, “all creatures are generated by him, and nothing that was made has been made without him”, which is why is immovable.
D. – Explain the Powers of Life.
R. – Since the Word does not move, it manifests itself by mouvment; which is why Zôé is Mixis and Synkrasis. In the course of her immense period, she reunites opposites while producing, according to the law of divine harmony, Pleasure and Bliss.
D. – What do terms like Pleasure and Bliss symbolize?
R. – They signigy the blossoming, expansion and fullness of life that results from all harmonious and reciprocal actions of two powers. The love of a man and a woman, when it is pure, results in the Invisible by the melody that is sung from the battle of their souls. It is the same in every degree of life… because “that which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is above” (but in an inverse sense).

CHAPTER X - THE DODECADE

D. – What is the Dodecade?
R. – The Dodecade is the reunion of the Syzygies emanated from Anthrôpos and Ekklêsia, the last born of the celestial Ogdoade.
D. – Of how many eons is the Dodecade composed?
R. – The Dodecade is composed of twelve Eons emanated two by two.
D. – What are these Eons?
R. – They are called: Paraklêtos (the Comforter), and Pistis (Faith); Patrikos (the Paternal), and Elpis (Hope); Mêtrikos (the Maternal), and Agapè (Love); Aeinoûs (That which is always prudent), and Synésis (Intelligence); Ekklêsiastikos (That which unites the Assembly), and Makaridès (perfect Joy); Thélêtès (Will), and Sophia (Wisdom).
D. – What is the role of these twelve Eons?
R. – They finish the realization and ennumeration of the Father's Powers; they complete the expression of the Absolute in the Pleroma. With the Decade, they form the complete cycle out of which come all creatures, because they are 22; and 22 equals the 4 who generated them.
D. – Would you summarize all that you have just said about the Pleroma?
R. – The Pleroma, according to our Master Valentinus, is constituted of the ineffable first Father, and the thirty Eons he emanated. The Primordial Essense (Proarchè) contains the power of the four attributes that are the first four Eons. These are manifest in the second quaternary of the celestial Ogdoade. And from this Ogdoade emanates all the other inhabitants of the Pleroma. Therefore, the Pleroma is the Being that opposes the Kenoma–the Void, and descends toward him by order of the first Father. Now, we will know the continuation of this involution.

CHAPTER XI- THE TEARS OF SOPHIA

D. – Please expose the ulterior developments of the Creation.
R. – Although by nature still similar to themselves, the Eons, by measure of the order that their emanation distanced them from their primitive Father, wanted, with that much more intensity, to return to Him and to reintegrate into the Absolute Being from which they had been detached.
D. – Then was the Pleroma prey to an internal disorder?
R. – No, the Pleroma could not know disorder. What you are calling disorder is merely the opposing double tendency of Emanation and Reintegration.
D. – Since the Pleroma no longer exists alone, did it have to produce some catastrophe in the struggle between these two Powers?
R. – In effect, the imbalance occurred thus: as the mysterious Eogonie developped itself in the splendors of the Empyrée, the strength of the emanation decreased in power, while the desire for reintegration rose with more force in the heart of the Eons. There came a time when this desire was carried away by the radiating Power: at that moment, Sophia began to act.
D. – Give me some clarification on the nature of the Eon Sophia.
R. – Sophia is the extremity of the Pleroma; she is the body of the Pleroma; that which animates it, and she remains eternally, generating all creatures and configuring all things.
D. – Then what happened?
R. – The intense desire that Sophia had to reintegrate with the abyssal Silence, was stronger than the Power of emanation. She knew the Abyss of the Propator; she discerned the method of generating the Eons, and wanted to imitate this divine action.
D. – What did the desire of Sophia produce?
R. – The ardors of Sophia only succeeded in the creation of a formless being called Ektrôma. The Eons, at the sight of this, prostrated themselves at the Father's feet to implore Him to rescue Sophia.
D. – What are the other names of Ektrôma?
R. – Enthymêsis or Sophia-Achamoth.
D. – What did the Primordial Essense do?
R. – He took mercy on the unhappy eon, and caused to be emanated, by the second Syzygie–Noûs and Alêthia–a new couple, the perfect example of integrity.
D. – What were the powers of this new Syzygie?
R. – They were called Christos and Pneuma Hagion; the principles of Christos and Our Lady the Holy Spirit.
D. – What did these Eons do?
R. – They started to separate the pure from the impure.
D. – How did they proceed?
R. – The Father of Fathers produced Hôros to this effect, the Eon of Boundaries, the crucial, the participant. Armed with a sword, he stands on the borders of the Pleroma, and his implacable vigilance mercilessly keeps out all those that cannot pass.
D. – What did Ektrôma become?
R. – This did not happen until Ektrôma was perfected. She received the name of Ogdoade8 or Exterior Sophia. Christos and Pneuma Hagion then ascended unto the Pleroma, where their return definitively re-established the peace and harmony of the Empyrée.
D. – How did the Eons manifest their joy?
R. – As a testament to the Propator for their recognition, they resolved to offer him an Eon, the perfect image of the unity and harmony that reigned from that moment on within the Pleroma.
D. – Who was this Eon?
R. – It was the Eon Jesus, formed of the purest essences of each of the Eons; he is the Crown of divine Emanations, “the Flower of the Pleroma”, the Great Pontiff.
D. – What happened to Sophia?
R. – Seeing Christos and Pneuma Hagion leave her it, the Ogdoade imagned herself abandoned. She offerd up unto them prayers and pressing supplications, and the Eons of the Pleroma, to save her, sent her the Eon Jesus.
D. – What did Jesus do for Sophia-Achamoth?
R. – He pacified her emotions which were fear, grief, anxiety and supplication; he transmuted them into permanent, plastic essences.
D. – How did Jesus transmute the sorrows of Sophia?
R. – From fear, he made the psychic essence; from grief, the essence of matter; from anxiety, the essence of the daïmons; and from supplication, he made the path that leads to repentance and to the power of the psychic essence. This path is the Demiurge or the right-hand essence.
D. – Do these three essencess bear any other names?
R. – The psychic essence is called the “Heavenly Place”, the Hebdomade, it is the place of the Demiurge. The essence of matter is also called hylic or diabolic, and the daïmonic essence is called spiritual or pneumatic.
D. – What happened next to the Ogdoade?
R. – Sophia, now comforted, was put back with her spouse Jesus; and they reproduced, in the Ogdoade, the Celestial Jerusalem, the emanations of the Pleroma.

CHAPTER XII - THE DEMIURGE

D. – What is the Demiurge?
R. – The Demiurge is the son of Sophia, created by her movement toward Light. He is the prince of the psychic essence, the unconscious executor of his mother's wills. He reigns over the Hebdomade.
D. – What is the work of the Demiurge?
R. – It is the formation of the exterior world in which we live, whose three essences were created in the beginning by the fear, grief and anxiety of Sophia.
D. – What did the Demiurge create?
R. – He created all creatures, those that have the same essence as him, called creatures of the right, as well as those formed of matter, called creatures of the left.
D. – Of whom is the Demiurge the image?
R. – He is the reversed image of the Monogénès of the Pleroma, because “what which is above is like that which is below, but in an inverse sense.”
D. – What process did he use to create our world?
R. – He first distinguished the two confused essences before him: hylic and psychic. Then, he created the things of the left and right, light and heavy, attracted upward or driven downward. He included all the creatures in the seven worlds of the Hebdomade9.
D. – From what element were these all pulled?
R. – The raw materials that the Demiurge elaborated were those that produced the emotions of Sophia-Achamoth.
D. – Specify these.
R. – From the fear felt by Sophia, he made all the spiritual substances of the creatures of this world; from the sadness, he made everything that is bad upon the earth; from the bewilderment and anxiety, he made the coporial things.
D. – What is the genesis of the four elements?
R. – The Demiurge pulled the earth from the fixity of bewilderment; water, from the tears of Sophia; air, from the coalescence of her grief; and finally fire, from the cause or the common root of these three passions.

Tau PAUL

1. Pistei kai logô kai gnôsei kai pasê spoudê.
2. By Salvation, we mean emancipation from the domination of the Demiurge and reintegration within the Pleroma.
3. It can be active while not acting, because its activity is potential, or non-manifest.
4. One gets precisely the number 365 by adding the numeric Greek letter values that form the word Abraxas or Abrasax.
5. Ουχ εντελης ανηρ.
6. It seems that there is an inversion here: Bythos, the Abyss, is masculine, and Sigè, Silence, is feminine; but it depends on the viewpoint considerd.
7. It is necessary to note that there are some differences of opinion about this order.
8. This is not to be confounded with the Ogdoade that was addressed in chapter VIII.
9. These seven worlds are governed by the seven Elohim, of which the Demiurge (Adonaï Tsabaoth or Lord of the Septenary) is the chief. One can also see the Demiurge as the synthesis of the Elohim (natural Forces), considered to be a collective entity. Again, it is necessary to note that the seven worlds of the Hebdomade are symbolized by the ‘spheres’ of the seven planets, but it would be absurd to want to identify them with the material planets of the solar system, because it is only a simple analogy. Each of these seven worlds is actually a different mode of existence within the domain of the Demiurge.