Chapter XXVIII: Section VII: Secundus, Epiphanes, Ptolemy, Colorbasus, And Marcus

Irenæus mentions several successors of Valentinus, some more at length than others.

Respecting SECUNDUS, who was the contemporary and disciple of Valentinus(697), he is very brief, merely informing us that he divided the first ogdoad into two tetrads, the right and the left, which he denominated _light_ and _darkness_: and that he asserted that the Being which erred and was forsaken by the upper powers was not one of the thirty, but one of their productions(698). The latter idea would appear to have for its object to remove the origin of evil further from the First Cause: but the former seems to be a contradiction to it, as it brings darkness into the Pleroma.

EPIPHANES, whose name the old translator has chosen to render by _Clarus_, (probably not understanding it to be a proper name,) was the son of Carpocrates(699), but attached himself to the followers of Secundus(700). He died very young, being according to Clem. Alex. only seventeen at the time of his death, and was honoured as a god by the people of Cephalonia, the birth‐place of his mother and his own place of residence. He is identified with the CLARUS of the old translator of Irenæus; 1. because he is commonly reckoned next to Secundus(701); 2. because _Clarus_ is a literal rendering of Ἐπιφανής; 3. because the doctrines ascribed to Epiphanes are the same as those which are attributed in Irenæus to Clarus(702). He differed from his predecessors in not giving any _name_ (properly speaking) to the First Cause, but in calling him Μονότης, and his companion Ἐνότης, which may perhaps be rendered Soleness and Unity. These, he said, constituted only one being. This duopersonal Being produced, without separation from himself, a beginning of all things, comprehensible, but unbegotten and invisible, called the Monad, and with him another power denominated the One. This was his first tetrad; but in the rest he does not appear to have differed from the other Valentinians(703).

PTOLEMY was a Valentinian, and is said to have been a disciple of Secundus and Epiphanes. It would appear from Irenæus that the system which he states at length, and which I have detailed above, was his actual system(704). Epiphanius indeed, quoting Irenæus(705), makes him say that this heretic and his disciples ascribed two wives to Bythus, Thought and Will, from whom he made the rest of the Æons to proceed. But it is evident from the version of the Ancient Interpreter that the actual words of Irenæus were Οἱ περὶ Πτολεμαῦον, which may mean either Ptolemy or his followers, and as Tertullian ascribes this tenet to his disciples, desirous of improving upon their master, we may safely conclude that Epiphanius does not intend to attribute it distinctly to Ptolemy, but either to him or to his followers.

Of the followers of Ptolemy, Irenæus mentions the tenets of COLORBASUS particularly. He does not indeed name him, but Epiphanes(706) and Theodoret(707) have supplied that defect, nor is there any contradictory statement on the subject. He taught that the first ogdoad of Æons did not spring successively one pair from another, but that the first four after the First Cause and his Thought were created at once when the Forefather determined upon giving forth some being, that became the Father; as what he emitted was true, it was called the Truth: when he wished to manifest himself, then came Man; and those whom he then foresaw were the Church. Then Man spoke the Word, and from Man and the Church came Life(708).

MARCUS is mentioned by Irenæus apparently as a disciple of Ptolemy, or at least as having made his system after him(709): and as Tertullian(710) speaks of him in the same terms, we may safely take that as the sense of Irenæus. We find him first in Asia Minor, recompensing the hospitality of a deacon with whom he lodged by corrupting his wife, who for a good while followed him, but was at length brought back to the Church by the perseverance of the Christians(711). Where his subsequent residence was we do not learn. The circumstance which brought him more particularly under the notice of Irenæus was that his opinions and the consequent depravity of morals had spread to the neighbourhood of Lyons(712). The practical mischief appears first to have attracted his attention, and he was thence led to inquire into the speculative system which produced such fruits. Both the one and the other shall be noticed in their order.

The scheme differed in reality very little in its frame‐work from that of Valentinus, Ptolemy, and Colorbasus; the latter of whom Irenæus represents him as more particularly agreeing with(713); but it was differently dressed up. Instead of making the Fulness a system of personal beings or emanations, he made it the _name_ of the Great First Cause, consisting of thirty letters, instead of as many Æons, divided into four syllables, of which the two first consisted of four letters each, the third of ten, and the fourth of twelve. This name originated in the wish of the Great Father to reveal himself. He therefore opened his mouth, and spoke a Word like himself, which was Ἀρχὴ, the Beginning; (this was the first syllable;) then a second, a third, and a fourth. What the three latter are we are not told: but they have continued to sound on from that day to the present, and will continue so to do, until they all unite in sounding forth together the same letter, when the consummation of all things will take place. About this matter, however, there is some obscurity, the passage not being very intelligible(714).

It would be tedious beyond measure to enter into the application of this particular notion to the general Gnostic scheme: but he held a particular doctrine in regard to Jesus, which it will be proper to mention. He thought that he was the joint production of Man and the Church, the Word and Life; but that in producing him the angel Gabriel took the place of the Word, the Holy Spirit of Life, the Power of the Most High of Man, and the Virgin Mary of the Church: that the Supreme Father chose him in the womb to manifest himself in him by means of the Word, who therefore descended upon him at his baptism in the form of a dove(715).

I come now to the _practice_ of Marcus. He openly pretended supernatural powers, communicated to him by a familiar spirit, which he flattered his followers, chiefly women, by professing to communicate to them(716). The Eucharist he found especially suited to his purpose, and was the first apparently who taught any thing like transubstantiation. He used, like the Church, wine mingled with water, but pretended to bring down into it by his prayers, the blood of the supernal Grace; and accordingly, lengthening out his devotion, that the chemical agents, which he doubtless employed, might have time to act, he at length produced the liquid, of a much deeper colour than when he began his incantations. In another of his tricks he gave his female friends a part. He requested one of them to take the mingled cup, and to offer the prayer of benediction; whereupon he poured the contents of it into a much larger cup, which he himself held, which, as he pronounced the mystical blessing upon the woman he employed, gradually became full with the contents of the smaller, and at length overflowed(717). This again was, in all probability, effected by some chemical agent, deposited in the bottom of the larger cup, and producing a gradual effervescence: but in those days of ignorance it stamped the worker of such wonders as something more than ordinary man.

In communicating, as he pretended, to his devotees a portion of the grace he possessed, he purposely contrived, in the most subtle manner, to inflame their sensual desires, and to direct them towards himself, without using a single word or act to which he could not immediately give a mystical meaning; so that, if his wishes did not succeed, there was nothing with which he could be charged, without subjecting the person who so charged him to the imputation of having put an unholy meaning upon holy things. And if they did succeed, the victim, if not conscience‐seared, would feel self‐corrupted and self‐betrayed. In this way he became master, not only of the persons, but also of the substance of many women of wealth and station(718). To make his arts, however, the more successful, he administered to them inflammatory drugs(719): and still more to guard himself from their defection, under the terror of conscience, and the dread of future judgment, he taught them a form of words, to be addressed to their mother Achamoth, whom he represents as seated with God on his throne, by means of which they would be rendered invisible to the Judge, and pass unhurt to their heavenly spouses the angels(720).

Such a scheme as this was too palatable to human nature not to have many followers; and accordingly it found its way to Lyons, where Irenæus was bishop. The exact nature of it was first learnt by the confessions of his victims and those of his followers, when, recovering from their delusion, they wished to be readmitted to the Church. One particular instance I have already mentioned, of his having seduced the wife of a deacon in Asia Minor, with whom he had lodged. This person remained with him for a long time; but, being at length restored by the unwearied efforts of the Christians, spent the rest of her life bewailing the pollution she had sustained. This was not the only instance of repentance; but most appear to have dreaded the public acknowledgment which was then required in the case of gross transgression, and thus never to have returned(721).