Chapter V: PERSONAL (iv. 7–18) (10)

It will be evident, I think, from the passages in St Paul, that the word πλήρωμα ‘fulness, plenitude’, must have had a more or less definite theological value when he wrote. This inference, which is suggested by the frequency of the word, seems almost inevitable when we consider the form of the expression in the first passage quoted, Col. i. 19. The absolute use of the word, πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα ‘all _the_ fulness’, would otherwise be unintelligible, for it does not explain itself. In my notes I have taken ὁ Θεός to be the nominative to εὐδόκησεν, but if the subject of the verb were πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα, as some suppose, the inference would be still more necessary. The word however, regarded as a theological term, does not appear to have been adopted, like so many other expressions in the Apostolic writers[544], from the nomenclature of Alexandrian Judaism. [Sidenote: derived from Palestine and not Alexandria.]At least no instance of its occurrence in this sense is produced from Philo. We may therefore conjecture that it had a Palestinian origin, and that the Essene Judaizers of Colossæ, whom St Paul is confronting, derived it from this source. In this case it would represent the Hebrew מלא, of which it is a translation in the LXX, and the Aramaic ܡܘܠܙܐ or some other derivative of the same root, such being its common rendering in the Peshito.

Footnote 544:

See the notes on Col. i. 15 sq.

[Sidenote: It denotes the totality of the Divine powers, etc. in the
Colossian letter.]

The sense in which St Paul employs this term was doubtless the sense which he found already attached to it. He means, as he explicitly states in the second Christological passage of the Colossian Epistle (ii. 9), the pleroma, the plenitude of ‘the Godhead’ or ‘of Deity’. In the first passage (i. 19), though the word stands without the addition τῆς θεότητος, the signification required by the context is the same. The true doctrine of the one Christ, who is the absolute mediator in the creation and government of the world, is opposed to the false doctrine of a plurality of mediators, ‘thrones, dominions, principalities, powers’. An absolute and unique position is claimed for Him, because in Him resides ‘all the pleroma’, i.e. the full complement, the aggregate of the Divine attributes, virtues, energies. This is another way of expressing the fact that He is the Logos, for the Logos is the synthesis of all the various δυνάμεις, in and by which God manifests Himself whether in the kingdom of nature or in the kingdom of grace.

[Sidenote: Analogy to its usage elsewhere: e.g.]

This application is in entire harmony with the fundamental meaning of the word. The term has been transferred to the region of theology, but in itself it conveys exactly the same idea as before. It implies that all the several elements which are required to realise the conception specified are present, and that each appears in its full proportions. [Sidenote: in Philo of the family]Thus Philo, describing the ideal state of prosperity which will result from absolute obedience to God’s law, mentions among other blessings the perfect development of the family: ‘Men shall be fathers and fathers too of goodly sons, and women shall be mothers of goodly children, so that each household shall be the _pleroma_ of a numerous kindred, where no part or name is wanting of all those which are used to designate relations, whether in the ascending line, as parents, uncles, grandfathers, or again in the descending line in like manner, as brothers, nephews, sons’ sons, daughters’ sons, cousins, cousins’ sons, kinsmen of all degrees[545].’ [Sidenote: and in Aristotle, of the state.]So again Aristotle, criticizing the _Republic_ of Plato, writes; ‘Socrates says that a city (or state) is composed of four classes, as its indispensable elements (τῶν ἀναγκαιοτάτων): by these he means the weaver, the husbandman, the shoemaker, and the builder; and again, because these are not sufficient by themselves, he adds the smith and persons to look after the necessary cattle, and besides them the merchant and the retail dealer: these together make up the _pleroma_ of a city in its simplest form (ταῦτα πάντα γίνεται πλήρωμα τῆς πρώτης πόλεως); thus he assumes that a city is formed to supply the bare necessities of life (τῶν ἀναγκων χάριν) etc.’[546]. From these passages it will be seen that the adequacy implied by the word, as so used, consists not less in the variety of the elements than in the fulness of the entire quantity or number.

Footnote 545:

_de Præm. et Pæn._ 18 (II. p. 425). The important words are ὡς ἕκαστον
οἶκον πλήρωμα εἶναι πολυανθρώπου συγγενείας, μηδενὸς ἐλλειφθέντος ἢ
μέρους ἢ ὀνόματος τῶν ὅσα ἐπιφημίζεται κ.τ.λ. The construction of the
subsequent part of the sentence is obscure; and for ὁμοίους we should
probably read ὁμοίως.

Footnote 546:

Arist. _Pol._ iv. 4 (p. 1291).

[Sidenote: Transition from Colossians to Ephesians.]

So far the explanation seems clear. But when we turn from the Colossian letter to the Ephesian, it is necessary to bear in mind the different aims of the two epistles. While in the former the Apostle’s main object is to assert the supremacy of the Person of Christ, in the latter his principal theme is the life and energy of the Church, as dependent on Christ[547]. So the pleroma residing in Christ is viewed from a different aspect, no longer in relation to God, so much as in relation to the Church. [Sidenote: Corresponding application of πληρωμα to the Church.]It is that plenitude of Divine graces and virtues which is communicated through Christ to the Church as His body. The Church, as _ideally_ regarded, the bride ‘without spot or wrinkle or any such thing’, becomes in a manner identified with Him[548]. All the Divine graces which reside in Him are imparted to her; His ‘fulness’ is communicated to her: and thus she may be said to be His pleroma (i. 23). This is the ideal Church. The actual militant Church must be ever advancing, ever struggling towards the attainment of this ideal. Hence the Apostle describes the end of all offices and administrations in the Church to be that the collective body may attain its full and mature growth, or (in other words) may grow up to the complete stature of Christ’s fulness[549]. But Christ’s fulness is God’s fulness. Hence in another passage he prays that the brethren may by the indwelling of Christ be fulfilled till they attain to the _pleroma_ of God (iii. 19). It is another way of expressing the continuous aspiration and effort after holiness which is enjoined in our Lord’s precept, ‘Ye shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect’[550].

Footnote 547:

See the notes on Col. ii. 19 (p. 266).

Footnote 548:

Ephes. v. 27 sq.

Footnote 549:

The Apostle in this passage (Ephes. iv. 13) is evidently contemplating
the collective body, and not the individual believers. He writes οἱ
πάντες, not πάντες, and ἄνδρα τέλειον, not ἄνδρας τελέιους. As he has
said before _ἑνὶ ἑκάστῳ_ ἡμῶν ἐδόθη [ἡ] χάρις _κατὰ τὸ
μέτρον_ τῆς δωρεᾶς τοῦ Χριστοῦ, so now he describes the result of
these various partial graces bestowed on _individuals_ to be the unity
and mature growth of the _whole_, ‘the building up of the _body_’,
μεχρὶ καταντήσωμεν _οἱ πάντες_ εἰς τὴν _ἑνότητα_ ... εἰς
_ἄνδρα_ τέλειον, εἰς μέτρον ἡλικίας τοῦ πληρώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ.
This corporate being must grow up into the one colossal Man, the
standard of whose spiritual and moral stature is nothing less than the
pleroma of Christ Himself.

Footnote 550:

Matt. v. 48.

[Sidenote: Gospel of St. John.]

The Gospel of St John, written in the first instance for the same Churches to which the Epistle to the Ephesians was sent, has numerous and striking points of resemblance with St Paul’s letter. This is the case here. As St Paul tells the Ephesians that the ideal Church is the pleroma of Christ and that the militant Church must strive to become the pleroma of Christ, so St John (i. 14 sq.) after describing our Lord as μονογενής, i.e. the unique and absolute representative of the Father, and as such ‘full (πλήρης) of grace and of truth’, says that they, the disciples, had ‘received out of His pleroma’ ever fresh accessions of grace. Each individual believer in his degree receives a fraction of that pleroma which is communicated whole to the ideal Church.

[Sidenote: Ignatian letters.]

The use of the word is not very different in the Ignatian letters. St Ignatius greets this same Ephesian Church, to which St Paul and St John successively here addressed the language already quoted, as ‘blessed in greatness by the pleroma of God the Father,’ i.e. by graces imparted from the pleroma. To the Trallians again he sends a greeting ‘in the pleroma’, where the word denotes the sphere of Divine gifts and operations, so that ἐν τῷ πληρώματι is almost equivalent to ἐν τῷ Κυρίῳ or ἐν τῷ πνεύματι.

[Sidenote: Gnostic sects.]

When we turn from Catholic Christianity to the Gnostic sects we find this term used, though (with one important exception) not in great frequency. Probably however, if the writings of the earlier Gnostics had been preserved, we should have found that it occupied a more important place than at present appears. One class of early Gnostics separated the spiritual being Christ from the man Jesus; they supposed that the Christ entered Jesus at the time of His baptism and left him at the moment of His crucifixion. Thus the Christ was neither born as a man nor suffered as a man. In this way they obviated the difficulty, insuperable to the Gnostic mind, of conceiving the connexion between the highest spiritual agency and gross corporeal matter which was involved in the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation and Passion, and which Gnostics of another type more effectually set aside by the theory of docetism, i.e. by assuming that the human body of our Lord was only a phantom body and not real flesh and blood. Irenæus represents the former class as teaching that ‘Jesus was the receptacle of the Christ’, and that the Christ ‘descended upon him from heaven in the form of a dove and after He had declared (to mankind) the nameless Father, entered (again) into the pleroma imperceptibly and invisibly’[551]. [Sidenote: The Cerinthians.]Here no names are given. But in another passage he ascribes precisely the same doctrine, without however naming the pleroma, to Cerinthus[552]. And in a third passage, which links together the other two, this same father, after mentioning this heresiarch, again alludes to the doctrine which maintained that the Christ, having descended on Jesus at his baptism, ‘flew back again into His own pleroma’[553]. In this last passage indeed the opinions of Cerinthus are mentioned in connexion with those of other Gnostics, more especially the Valentinians, so that we cannot with any certainty attribute this expression to Cerinthus himself. But in the first passage the unnamed heretics who maintained this return of the Christ ‘into the pleroma’ are expressly distinguished from the Valentinians; and presumably therefore the allusion is to the Cerinthians, to whom the doctrine, though not the expression, is ascribed in the second passage. [Sidenote: Connexion of this use with St Paul and with the Colossian heretics.]Thus there seems to be sufficient reason for attributing the use of the term to Cerinthus[554]. This indeed is probable on other grounds. The term _pleroma_, we may presume, was common to St Paul and the Colossian heretics whom he controverts. To both alike it conveyed the same idea, the totality of the divine powers or attributes or agencies or manifestations. But after this the divergence begins. They maintained that a single divine power, a fraction of the pleroma, resided in our Lord: the Apostle urges on the contrary, that the whole pleroma has its abode in Him[555]. The doctrine of Cerinthus was a development of the Colossian heresy, as I have endeavoured to show above[556]. He would therefore inherit the term _pleroma_ from it. [Sidenote: The _pleroma_ localized.]At the same time he seems to have given a poetical colouring to his doctrine, and so doing to have treated the pleroma as a _locality_, a higher spiritual region, from which this divine power, typified by the dove-like form, issued forth as on wings, and to which, taking flight again, it reascended before the Passion. If so, his language would prepare the way for the still more elaborate poetic imagery of the Valentinians, in which the pleroma, conceived as a locality, a region, an _abode_ of the divine powers, is conspicuous.

Footnote 551:

iii. 16. 1 ‘Quoniam autem sunt qui dicunt Iesum quidem receptaculum
Christi fuisse, in quem desuper quasi columbam descendisse, et quum
indicasset innominabilem Patrem, incomprehensibiliter et invisibiliter
_intrasse in pleroma_’.

Footnote 552:

i. 26. 1 ‘post baptismum descendisse in eum ab ea principalitate, quæ
est super omnia, Christum figura columbæ; et tunc annuntiasse
incognitum Patrem et virtutes perfecisse: in fine autem _revolasse
iterum_ Christum de Iesu et Iesum passum esse et resurrexisse, etc.’

Footnote 553:

iii. 11. 1 ‘iterum revolasse in suum pleroma’. This expression is the
connecting link between the other two passages. This third passage is
quoted more at length, above, p. 112: but I ought to have stated there
that _illi_ is referred by several critics to the Valentinians, and
that certainly some characteristic errors of the Valentinian teaching
are specified immediately after. The probable explanation seems to be
that _illi_ is intended to include the Gnostics generally, and that
Irenæus mentions in illustration the principal errors of Gnostic
teaching, irrespective of the schools to which they belong. He goes on
to say that St John in his Gospel desired to exclude ‘omnia talia’.

Footnote 554:

I have not been able however to verify the statement in Harvey’s
_Irenæus_ I. p. lxxiii that ‘The Valentinian notion of a spiritual
marriage between the souls of the elect and the angels of the Pleroma
originated with Cerinthus’.

Footnote 555:

See p. 101 sq., and the notes on i. 19.

Footnote 556:

p. 107 sq.

[Sidenote: The term avoided by Basilides,]

The attitude of later Gnostics towards this term is widely divergent. The word is not, so far as I am aware, once mentioned in connexion with the system of Basilides. Indeed the nomenclature of this heresiarch belongs to a wholly different type; and, as he altogether repudiated the doctrine of emanations[557], it is not probable that he would have any fondness for a term which was almost inextricably entangled with this doctrine.

Footnote 557:

Hippol. _R. H._ vii. 22 φεύγει γὰρ πάνυ καὶ δέδοικε τὰς κατὰ προβολὴν
τῶν γεγονότων οὐσίας ὁ Βασιλείδης. Basilides asked why the absolute
First Cause should be likened to a spider spinning threads from
itself, or a smith or carpenter working up his materials. The later
Basilideans, apparently influenced by Valentinianism, superadded to
the teaching of their founder in this respect; but the strong language
quoted by Hippolytus leaves no doubt about the mind of Basilides
himself.

[Sidenote: but prominent in Valentinianism.]

On the other hand with Valentinus and the Valentinians the doctrine of the _pleroma_ was the very key-stone of their system; and, since at first sight it is somewhat difficult to connect their use of the term with St Paul’s, a few words on this subject may not be out of place.

[Sidenote: Poetic teaching of Valentinus.]

Valentinus then dressed his system in a poetic imagery not unlike the myths of his master Plato. But a myth or story involves action, and action requires a scene of action. Hence the mysteries of theology and cosmogony and redemption call for a _topographical_ representation, and the pleroma appears not as an abstract idea, but as a locality.

[Sidenote: _Topographical_ conception of the pleroma.]

The Valentinian system accordingly maps out the universe of things into two great regions, called respectively the _pleroma_ and the _kenoma_, the ‘fulness’ and the ‘void’. From a Christian point of view these may be described as the kingdoms of light and of darkness respectively. [Sidenote: Antithesis of _pleroma_ and _kenoma_.]From the side of Platonism, they are the regions of real and of phenomenal existences—the world of eternal archetypes or ideas, and the world of material and sensible things. The identification of these two antitheses was rendered easy for the Gnostic; because with him knowledge was one with morality and with salvation, and because also matter was absolutely bound up with evil. It is difficult to say whether the Platonism or the Christianity predominates in the Valentinian theology; but the former at all events is especially prominent in their conception of the relations between the pleroma and the kenoma.

[Sidenote: _Pleroma_ the abode of the Æons.]

The pleroma is the abode of the Æons, who are thirty in number. These Æons are successive emanations, of which the first pair sprang immediately from the preexistent Bythus or Depth. This Bythus is deity in itself, the absolute first principle, as the name suggests; the profound, unfathomable, limitless, of whom or of which nothing can be predicated and nothing known. Here again we have something like a _local_ representation. The Æons or emanations are plainly the attributes and energies of deity; they are, or they comprise, the eternal ideas or archetypes of the Platonic philosophy. In short they are deity relative, deity under self-imposed limitations, deity derived and divided up, as it were, so as at length to be conceivable.

[Sidenote: Different forms of Valentinianism.]

The topographical relation of Bythus to the derived Æons was differently given in different developments of the Valentinian teaching. According to one representation he was outside the pleroma; others placed his abode within it, but even in this case he was separated from the rest by Horus (Ὅρος), a personified Boundary or Fence, whom none, not even the Æons themselves, could pass[558]. The former mode of representation might be thought to accord better with the imagery, at the same time that it is more accurate if regarded as the embodiment of a philosophical conception. Nevertheless the latter was the favourite mode of delineation; and it had at least this recommendation, that it combined in one all that is real, as opposed to all that is phenomenal. In this pleroma every existence which is suprasensual and therefore true has its abode.

Footnote 558:

For the various modes in which the relation of the absolute first
principle to the pleroma was represented in different Valentinian
schools, see Iren. i. 1. 1, i. 2. 4, i. 11. 1, 3, 5, i. 12. 1, etc.
The main distinction is that stated in the text: the first principle
was represented in two ways; either (i) as a monad, outside the
pleroma; or (ii) as a dyad, a syzygy, most commonly under the
designation of Βυθός and Σιγή, included within the pleroma but fenced
off from the other æons. The Valentinian doctrine as given by
Hippolytus (vi. 29 sq.) represents the former type. There are good,
though perhaps not absolutely decisive, reasons for supposing that
this father gives the original teaching of Valentinus himself. For (1)
this very doctrine of the monad seems to point to an earlier date. It
is the link which connects the system of Valentinus not only with
Pythagoreanism to which (as Hippolytus points out) he was so largely
indebted, but also with the teaching of the earlier heresiarch
Basilides, whose first principle likewise was a monad, the absolute
nothing, the non-existent God. The conception of the first principle
as a dyad seems to have been a later, and not very happy, modification
of the doctrine of the founder, being in fact an extension of the
principle of syzygies which Valentinus with a truer philosophical
conception had restricted to the derived essences. (2) The exposition
of Hippolytus throughout exhibits a system at once more consistent and
more simple, than the luxuriant developments of the later
Valentinians, such as Ptolemæus and Marcus. (3) The sequence of his
statement points to the same conclusion. He gives a consecutive
account of some one system, turning aside from time to time to notice
the variations of different Valentinian schools from this standard and
again resuming the main thread of his exposition. It seems most
natural therefore that he should have taken the system of the founder
as his basis. On the other hand Irenæus (i. 11. 1) states that
Valentinus represented the first principle as a dyad (Ἄρρητος or
Βυθὁς, and Σιγή): but there is no evidence that he had any direct or
indirect knowledge of the writings of Valentinus himself, and his
information was derived from the later disciples of the school, more
especially from the Ptolemæans.

[Sidenote: _Kenoma_, the region of phenomena.]

Separated from this celestial region by Horus, another Horus or Boundary, which, or who, like the former is impassable, lies the ‘kenoma’ or ‘void’—the kingdom of this world, the region of matter and material things, the land of shadow and darkness[559]. Here is the empire of the Demiurge or Creator, who is not a celestial Æon at all, but was born in this very void over which he reigns. Here reside all those phenomenal, deceptive, transitory things, of which the eternal counterparts are found only in the pleroma.

Footnote 559:

Iren. i. 4. 1, 2, ii. 3. 1, ii. 4. 1, 3, ii. 5. 1, ii. 8. 1–3, ii. 14.
3, iii. 25. 6, 7, etc.

[Sidenote: Platonism of this antithesis.]

It is in this antithesis that the Platonism of the Valentinian theory reaches its climax. All things are set off one against another in these two regions[560]: just as

The swan on still St Mary’s lake
Floats double, swan and shadow.

Not only have the thirty Æons their terrestrial counterparts; but their subdivisions also are represented in this lower region. The kenoma too has its ogdoad, its decad, its dodecad, like the pleroma[561]. There is one Sophia in the supramundane region, and another in the mundane; there is one Christ who redeems the Æons in the spiritual world, and a second Christ who redeems mankind, or rather a portion of mankind, in the sensible world. There is an Æon Man and another Æon Ecclesia in the celestial kingdom, the ideal counterparts to the Human Race and the Christian Church of the terrestrial. Even individual men and women, as we shall see presently, have their archetypes in this higher sphere of intelligible being.

Footnote 560:

Iren. i. 6. 3, i. 7. 1 sq., ii. 14. 3, ii. 15. 3 sq., ii. 20. 5, ii.
30. 3, etc.

Footnote 561:

Iren. i. 5. 2, ii. 14. 3; comp. Hippol. vi. 34.

[Sidenote: The localization of the _pleroma_ carried out in detail.]

The topographical conception of the pleroma moreover is carried out in the details of the imagery. The second Sophia, called also Achamoth, is the desire, the offspring, of her elder namesake, separated from her mother, cast out of the pleroma, and left ‘stranded’ in the void beyond[562], being prevented from returning by the inexorable Horus who guards the frontier of the supramundane kingdom. The second Christ—a being compounded of elements contributed by all the Æons[563]—was sent down from the pleroma, first of all at the eve of creation to infuse something like order and to provide for a spiritual element in this lower world; and secondly, when He united Himself with the man Jesus for the sake of redeeming those who were capable of redemption[564]. At the end of all things Sophia Achamoth, and with her the spiritual portion of mankind, shall be redeemed and received up into the pleroma, while the psychical portion will be left outside to form another kingdom under the dominion of their father the Demiurge. This redemption and ascension of Achamoth (by a perversion of a scriptural image) was represented as her espousals with the Saviour, the second Christ; and the pleroma, the scene of this happy union, was called the bridal-chamber[565]. Indeed the localization of the pleroma is as complete as language can make it. The constant repetition of the words ‘within’ and ‘without’, ‘above’ and ‘beneath’, in the development of this philosophical and religious myth still further impresses this local sense on the term[566].

Footnote 562:

Iren. i. 4. 1 λέγουσιν ἐν σκιαῖς [σκιᾶς] καὶ κενώματος τόποις
_)εκβεβράσθαι_ κ.τ.λ. The Greek MS reads καὶ σκηνώματος, but the
rendering of the early Latin translation ‘in umbræ [et?] vacuitatis
locis’ leaves no doubt about the word in the original text. Tertullian
says of this Achamoth (_adv. Valent._ 14) ‘explosa est in loca luminis
aliena ... in vacuum atque inane illud Epicuri’. See note 567.

Footnote 563:

Iren. i. 2. 6, Hippol. vi. 32.

Footnote 564:

They quoted, as referring to this descent of the second Christ into
the kenoma, the words of St Paul, Phil. ii. 7 ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν; Clem.
Alex. _Exc. Theod._ 35 (p. 978).

Footnote 565:

Iren. i. 7. 1 καὶ τοῦτο εἶναι νυμφίον καὶ νύμφην, _νυμφῶνα_ δὲ τὸ
πᾶν πλήρωμα: comp. Hippol. vi. 34 ὁ νυμφίος αὐτῆς.

Footnote 566:

This language is so frequent that special references are needless. In
Iren. ii. 5. 3 we have a still stronger expression, ‘in ventre
pleromatis’.

[Sidenote: The connexion with St. Paul’s use of the term obscured,]

In this topographical representation the connexion of meaning in the word _pleroma_ as employed by St Paul and by Valentinus respectively seems at first sight to be entirely lost. When we read of the contrast between the pleroma and the kenoma, the fulness and the void, we are naturally reminded of the _plenum_ and the _vacuum_ of physical speculations. The sense of pleroma, as expressing completeness and so denoting the aggregate or totality of the Divine powers, seems altogether to have disappeared. [Sidenote: owing partly to the false antithesis κένωμα]But in fact this antithesis of κένωμα was, so far as we can make out, a mere after-thought, and appears to have been borrowed, as Irenæus states, from the physical theories of Democritus and Epicurus[567]. It would naturally suggest itself both because the opposition of πλήρης and κενὸς was obvious, and because the word κένωμα materially assisted the imagery as a description of the kingdom of waste and shadow. But in itself it is a false antithesis. [Sidenote: borrowed from physical philosophers;]The true antithesis appears in another, and probably an earlier, term used to describe the mundane kingdom. In this earlier representation, which there is good reason for ascribing to Valentinus himself, it is called not κένωμα ‘the void’, but ὑστέρημα ‘the deficiency, incompleteness’[568]. [Sidenote: but reappears in their common phraseology.]Moreover the common phraseology of the Valentinian schools shows that the idea suggested by this opposition to κένωμα was not the original idea of the term. They speak of τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν αἴωνων, τὸ πᾶν πλήρωμα τῶν αἴωνων, ‘the whole aggregate of the Æons’[569]. And this (making allowance for the personification of the Æons) corresponds exactly to its use in St Paul.

Footnote 567:

Iren. ii. 14. 3 ‘Umbram autem et vacuum ipsorum a Democrito et Epicuro
sumentes sibimetipsis _aptaverunt_, quum illi primum multum sermonem
fecerint de vacuo et de atomis’.

Footnote 568:

Hippol. vi. 31 καλεῖται δὲ ὅρος μὲν ὁῦτος ὅτι ἀφορίζει ἀπὸ τοῦ
πληρώματος ἔξω τὸ ὑστέρημα· μετοχὲυς δε ὅτι μετέχει καὶ τοῦ
ὑστερήματος (i.e. as standing between the πλήρωμα and ὑστέρημα)·
σταυρὸς δέ, ὅτι πέπηγεν ἀκλινῶς καὶ ἀμετανόητως, ὡς μὴ δύνασθαι μηδὲν
τοῦ ὑστερήματος καταγενέσθαι ἐγγὺς τῶν ἐντὸς πληρώματος αἴωνων.
Irenæus represents the Marcosians as designating the Demiurge καρπὸς
ὑστερήματος i. 17. 2, i. 19. 1, ii. præf. 1, ii. 1. 1 (comp. i. 14.
1). This was perhaps intended originally as an antithesis to the name
of the Christ, who was καρπὸς πληρώματος. The Marcosians however
apparently meant Sophia Achamoth by this ὑστερημα. This transference
from the whole to the part would be in strict accordance with their
terminology: for as they called the supramundane æons πληρώματα (Iren.
i. 14. 2, 5; quoted in Hippol. vi. 43, 46), so also by analogy they
might designate the mundane Powers ὑστερήματα (comp. Iren. i. 16. 3).
The term, as it occurs in the document used by Hippolytus, plainly
denotes the _whole_ mundane region.

Hippolytus does not use the word κένωμα, though so common in Irenæus.
This fact seems to point to the earlier date of the Valentinian
document which he uses, and so to bear out the result arrived at in a
previous note (p. 332) that we have here a work of Valentinus himself.
The word ὑστέρημα appears also in _Exc. Theod._ 22 (p. 974).

Footnote 569:

e.g. Hippol. vi. 34, Iren. i. 2. 6. See especially Iren. ii. 7. 3
‘Quoniam enim pleroma ipsorum triginta Aeones sunt, ipsi testantur’.

[Sidenote: The original meaning shown by other uses.]

Again the teaching of the Valentinian schools supplies other uses which serve to illustrate its meaning. Not only does the supramundane kingdom as a whole bear this name, but each separate Æon, of which that kingdom is the aggregation, is likewise called a pleroma[570]. This designation is given to an Æon, because it is the fulness, the perfection, of which its mundane counterpart is only a shadowy and defective copy. Nor does the narrowing of the term stop here. There likewise dwells in this higher region a pleroma, or eternal archetype, not only of every comprehensive mundane power, but of each individual man; and to wed himself with this heavenly partner, this Divine ideal of himself, must be the study of his life. [Sidenote: Interpretation of John iv. 17, 18.]The profound moral significance, which underlies the exaggerated Platonism and perverse exegesis of this conception, will be at once apparent. But the manner in which the theory was carried out is curiously illustrated by the commentary of the Valentinian Heracleon on our Lord’s discourse with the Samaritan woman[571]. This woman, such is his explanation, belongs to the spiritual portion of mankind. But she had had six[572] husbands, or in other words she had entangled herself with the material world, had defiled herself with sensuous things. The husband however, whom she now has, is not her husband; herein she has spoken rightly: the Saviour in fact means ‘her partner from the pleroma’. Hence she is bidden to go and call him; that is, she must find ‘her pleroma, that coming to the Saviour with him (or it), she may be able to obtain from Him the power and the union and the combination with her pleroma’ (τὴν δύναμιν καὶ τὴν ἕνωσιν καὶ τὴν ἀνάκρασιν τὴν πρὸς τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῆς). ‘For’, adds Heracleon, ‘He did not speak of a mundane (κοσμικοῦ) husband when He told her to call him, since He was not ignorant that she had no lawful husband’.

Footnote 570:

See the passages from Irenæus quoted above, note 568; comp. _Exc.
Theod._ 32, 33 (p. 977). Similarly λόγοι is a synonym for the Æons,
ὁμωνύμως τῷ Λόγῳ, _Exc. Theod._ 25 (p. 975).

Footnote 571:

Heracleon in Orig. _in Ioann._ xiii, iv. p. 205 sq. The passages are
collected in Stieren’s Irenæus p. 947 sq. See especially p. 950 ὄιεται
[ὁ Ἡρακλέων] τῆς Σαμαρείτιδος τὸν λεγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἄνδρα τὸ
_πλήρωμα εἶναι αὐτῆς_, ἵνα σὺν ἐκείνῳ γενομένη πρὸς τὸν σωτῆρα
κομίσεσθαι παρ’ αὐτοῦ τὴν δύναμιν καὶ τὴν ἕνωσιν καὶ τὴν ἀνάκρασιν τὴν
πρὸς _τὸ πλήρωμα αὑτῆς_ δυνηθῇ· οὐ γὰρ περὶ ἀνδρός, φησί,
κοσμικοῦ ἔλεγεν ... λέγων αὐτῇ τὸν σωτῆρα εἰρηκέναι, Φώνησόν σου τὸν
ἄνδρα καὶ ἐλθὲ ἐνθάδε· δηλοῦντα _τὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ πληρώματος σύζυγον_.
Lower down Heracleon says ἦν αὐτῆς ὁ ἀνὴρ ἐν τῷ Αἰῶνι. By this last
expression I suppose he means that the great æon Man of the Ogdoad,
the eternal archetype of mankind, comprises in itself archetypes
corresponding to each individual man and woman, not indeed of the
whole human race (for the Valentinian would exclude the psychical and
carnal portion from any participation in this higher region) but of
the spiritual portion thereof.

Footnote 572:

Origen expressly states that Heracleon read ἕξ for πέντε. The number
six was supposed to symbolize the material creature: see Heracleon on
‘the forty and _six_ years’ of John ii. 20 (Stieren p. 947). There is
no reason to think that Heracleon falsified the text here; he appears
to have found this various reading already in his copy.

[Sidenote: Valentinians accept St Paul and St John,]

Impossible as it seems to us to reconcile the Valentinian system with the teaching of the Apostles, the Valentinians themselves felt no such difficulty. They intended their philosophy not to supersede or contradict the Apostolic doctrine, but to supplement it and to explain it on philosophical principles. Hence the Canon of the Valentinians comprehended the Canon of Catholic Christianity in all its essential parts, though some Valentinian schools at all events supplemented it with Apocryphal writings. More particularly the Gospel of St John and the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians were regarded with especial favour; and those passages which speak of the pleroma are quoted more than once in their writings to illustrate their teaching. [Sidenote: and quote them in support of their views.]By isolating a few words from the context and interpreting them wholly without reference to their setting, they had no difficulty in finding a confirmation of their views, where we see only an incongruity or even a contradiction. For instance, their second Christ—the redeemer of the spiritual element in the mundane world—was, as we saw, compacted of gifts contributed by all the Æons of the pleroma. Hence he was called ‘the common fruit of the pleroma’, ‘the fruit of all the pleroma’[573], ‘the most perfect beauty and constellation of the pleroma’[574]; hence also he was designated ‘All’ (πᾶν) and ‘All things’ (πάντα)[575]. Accordingly, to this second Christ, not to the first, they applied these texts; Col. iii. 11 ‘And He is all things’, Rom. xi. 36 ‘All things are unto Him and from Him are all things’, Col. ii. 9 ‘In Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead’, Ephes. i. 10 ‘To gather together in one all things in Christ through God’[576]. So too they styled him )Ευδόκητος, with a reference to Col. i. 19, because ‘all the pleroma was pleased through Him to glorify the Father’[577]. And inasmuch as this second Christ was according to the Valentinian theory instrumental in the creation of the mundane powers, they quoted, or rather misquoted, as referring to this participation in the work of the Demiurge, the passage Col. i. 16 ‘In Him were created all things, visible and invisible, thrones, deities, dominions’[578]. Indeed it seems clear that these adaptations were not always afterthoughts, but that in several instances at least their nomenclature was originally chosen for the sake of fitting the theory to isolated phrases and expressions in the Apostolic writings, however much it might conflict with the Apostolic doctrine in its main lines[579].

Footnote 573:

The expression is ὁ κοινὸς τοῦ πληρώματος καρπὸς in Hippolytus vi. 32,
34, 36 (pp. 190, 191, 192, 193, 196). In Irenæus i. 8. 5 it is καρπὸς
παντὸς τοῦ πληρώματος.

Footnote 574:

Iren. i. 2. 6 τελειότατον κάλλος τε καὶ ἄστρον τοῦ πληρώματος.

Footnote 575:

Iren. i. 2. 6, i. 3. 4.

Footnote 576:

Iren. i. 3. 4. The passages are given in the text as they are quoted
by Irenæus from the Valentinians. Three out of the four are incorrect.

Footnote 577:

Iren. i. 12. 4; comp. _Exc. Theod._ 31 (p. 977) εἰ ὁ κατελθὼν εὐδοκία
τοῦ ὅλου ἦν· ἐν αὐτῷ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα ἦν σωματικῶς.

Footnote 578:

Iren. i. 4. 5 ὅπως ἐν αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα κτισθῇ, τὰ ὁρατὰ καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα,
θρόνοι, θεότητες, κυριότητες, where the misquotation is remarkable. In
_Exc. Theod._ 43 (p. 979) the words run πάντα γὰρ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ
ὁρατὰ καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα, θρόνοι, κυριότητες, βασιλεῖαι, θεότητες,
λειτουργίαι· δὶο καὶ ὁ Θεὸς αὐτὸν ὑπερύψωσεν κ.τ.λ. (the last words
being taken from Phil. ii. 9 sq.).

Footnote 579:

Thus they interpreted Ephes. iii. 21 εἰς πάσας τὰς γενὲας τοῦ αἰῶνος
τῶν αἰώνων as referring to their generated æons: Iren. i. 3. 1.
Similar is the use which they made of expressions in the opening
chapter of St John, where they found their first Ogdoad described:
_ib._ i. 8. 5.

[Sidenote: Use of the term by the Docetæ]

The heretics called Docetæ by Hippolytus have no connexion with docetism, as it is generally understood, i.e. the tenet that Christ’s body was not real flesh and blood, but merely a phantom body. Their views on this point, as represented by this father, are wholly different[580]. Of their system generally nothing need be said here, except that it is largely saturated with Valentinian ideas and phrases. From the Valentinians they evidently borrowed their conception of the pleroma, by which they understood the aggregate, or (as localized) the abode, of the Æons. With them, as with the Valentinians, the Saviour is the common product of all the Æons[581]; and in speaking of him they echo a common Valentinian phrase ‘the pleroma of the entire Æons’[582].

Footnote 580:

_R. H._ viii. 10 (p. 267).

Footnote 581:

_ib._ viii. 9.

Footnote 582:

_ib._ viii. 10 (p. 266).

[Sidenote: and by two Ophite sects.]

The Ophite heresy, Proteus-like, assumes so many various forms, that the skill of critics has been taxed to the utmost to bind it with cords and extract its story from it. It appears however from the notices of Hippolytus, that the term _pleroma_ was used in a definite theological sense by at least two branches of the sect, whom he calls Naassenes and Peratæ.

[Sidenote: (i) Naassenes.]

Of the Naassenes Hippolytus tells us that among other images borrowed from the Christian and Jewish Scriptures, as well as from heathen poetry, they described the region of true knowledge—their kingdom of heaven, which was entered by initiation into their mysteries—as the land flowing with milk and honey, ‘which when the perfect (the true Gnostics, the fully initiated) have tasted, they are freed from subjection to kings (ἀβασιλεύτους) and partake of the pleroma.’ Here is a plain allusion to Joh. i. 16. ‘This’, the anonymous Naassene writer goes on to say, ‘is the pleroma, through which all created things coming into being are produced and fulfilled (πεπλήρωται) from the Uncreated’[583]. Here again, as in the Valentinian system, the conception of the pleroma is strongly tinged with Platonism. The pleroma is the region of ideas, of archetypes, which intervenes between the author of creation and the material world, and communicates their specific forms to the phenomenal existences of the latter.

Footnote 583:

_R. H._ v. 8.

[Sidenote: (ii) Peratæ.]

The theology of the second Ophite sect, the Peratæ, as described by Hippolytus, is a strange phenomenon. [Sidenote: Their theology]They divided the universe into three regions, the uncreate, the self-create, and the created. Again the middle region may be said to correspond roughly to the Platonic kingdom of ideas. But their conception of deity is entirely their own. They postulate three of every being; three Gods, three Words, three Minds (i.e. as we may suppose three Spirits), three Men. Thus there is a God for each region, just as there is a Man. In full accordance with this perverse and abnormal theology is their application of St Paul’s language. [Sidenote: and corresponding application of πλήρωμα.]Their Christ has three natures, belonging to these three kingdoms respectively; and this completeness of His being is implied by St Paul in Col. i. 19, ii. 9, which passages are combined in their loose quotation or paraphrase, ‘All the pleroma was pleased to dwell in him bodily, and there is in him all the godhead’, i.e. (as Hippolytus adds in explanation) ‘of this their triple division (τῆς οὕτω διῃρημένης τρίαδος)’[584]. This application is altogether arbitrary, having no relation whatever to the theological meaning of the term in St Paul. It is also an entire departure from the conception of the Cerinthians, Valentinians, and Naassenes, in which this meaning, however obscured, was not altogether lost. These three heresies took a horizontal section of the universe, so to speak, and applied the term as coextensive with the supramundane stratum. The Peratæ on the other hand divided it vertically, and the pleroma, in their interpretation of the text, denoted the whole extent of this vertical section. There is nothing in common between the two applications beyond the fundamental meaning of the word, ‘completeness, totality’.

Footnote 584:

_R. H._ v. 12.

[Sidenote: Pistis Sophia.]

The extant Gnostic work, called Pistis Sophia, was attributed at one time on insufficient grounds to Valentinus. It appears however to exhibit a late development of Ophitism[585], far more Christian and less heathen in its character than those already considered. In this work the word pleroma occurs with tolerable frequency; but its meaning is not easily fixed. [Sidenote: Frequent use of the term.]Early in the treatise it is said that the disciples supposed a certain ‘mystery’, of which Jesus spoke, to be ‘the end of all the ends’ and ‘the head (κεφαλήν) of the Universe’ and ‘the whole pleroma’[586]. Here we seem to have an allusion to the Platonic kingdom of ideas, i.e. of intelligible being, of absolute truth, as reproduced in the Valentinian pleroma. And the word is used sometimes in connexion with the completeness of revelation or the perfection of knowledge. Thus our Lord is represented as saying to His disciples, ‘I will tell you the whole mystery and the whole pleroma, and I will conceal nothing from you from this hour; and in perfection will I perfect you in every pleroma and in every perfection and in every mystery, which things are the perfection of all the perfections and the pleroma of all the pleromas’[587]. Elsewhere however Mary, to whom Jesus is represented as making some of his chief revelations, is thus addressed by Him; ‘Blessed art thou above (παρὰ) all women that are on the earth, for thou shalt be pleroma of all the pleromas and perfection of all the perfections’[588], where the word must be used in a more general sense.

Footnote 585:

See Köstlin in _Theolog. Jahrb._ Tübingen 1854, p. 185.

Footnote 586:

_Pistis Sophia_ p. 3 sq.

Footnote 587:

_ib._ p. 15 sq.: comp. pp. 4, 60, 75, 187, 275.

Footnote 588:

_ib._ p. 28 sq.: comp. p. 56. On p. 7 πλήρωμα is opposed to ἀρχή,
apparently in the sense of ‘completion’.

[Sidenote: Monoimus the Arabian.]

One heresy still remains to be noticed in connexion with this word. Hippolytus has preserved an account of the teaching of Monoimus the Arabian, of whom previously to the discovery of this father’s treatise we knew little more than the name. In this strange form of heresy the absolute first principle is the uncreate, imperishable, eternal Man. I need not stop to enquire what this statement means. It is sufficient for the present purpose to add that this eternal Man is symbolized by the letter Ι, the ‘one iota’, the ‘one tittle’ of the Gospel[589]; and this Ι, as representing the number ten, includes in itself all the units from one to nine. ‘This’, added Monoimus, ‘is (meant by) the saying (of scripture) _All the pleroma was pleased to dwell upon the Son of Man_ _bodily_’[590]. Here the original idea of the word as denoting completeness, totality, is still preserved.

Footnote 589:

Matt. v. 18.

Footnote 590:

_R. H._ viii. 13.

_The Epistle from_ _Laodicea_[591].

[Sidenote: Different theories classified.]

The different opinions respecting the epistle thus designated by St Paul, which have been held in ancient or modern times, will be seen from the following table;

1. An _Epistle written by the Laodiceans_; to

(α) St Paul;

(β) Epaphras;

(γ) Colossæ.

2. An _Epistle written by St Paul from Laodicea_.

(α) 1 Timothy;

(β) 1 Thessalonians;

(γ) 2 Thessalonians;

(δ) Galatians.

3. An _Epistle addressed to the Laodiceans_ by

(_a_) St John (the First Epistle);

(_b_) Some companion of St Paul (Epaphras or Luke);

(_c_) St Paul himself;

(i) A lost Epistle.

(ii) One of the Canonical Epistles.

(α) Hebrews;

(β) Philemon;

(γ) Ephesians.

(iii) The Apocryphal Epistle.

Footnote 591:

The work of Anger, _Ueber den Laodicenerbrief_ (Leipzig 1843), is very
complete. He enumerates and discusses very thoroughly the opinions of
his predecessors, omitting hardly anything relating to the literature
of the subject which was accessible at the time when he wrote. His
exposition of his own view, though not less elaborate, is less
satisfactory. A later monograph by A. Sartori, _Ueber den
Laodicenserbrief_ (Lübeck 1853), is much slighter and contributes
nothing new.

In this maze of conflicting hypotheses we might perhaps be tempted to despair of finding our way and give up the search as hopeless. Yet I venture to think that the true identification of the epistle in question is not, or at least ought not to be, doubtful.

[Sidenote: 1. An epistle written by the Laodiceans.]

1. The opinion that the epistle was addressed by the Laodiceans to St Paul, and not conversely, found much support in the age of the Greek commentators. It is mentioned by St Chrysostom as held by ‘some persons’, though he himself does not pronounce a definite opinion on the subject[592]. [Sidenote: Advocates of this theory.]It is eagerly advocated by Theodore of Mopsuestia. He supposes that the letter of the Laodiceans contained some reflexions on the Colossian Church, and that St Paul thought it good for the Colossians to hear what their neighbours said of them[593]. Theodoret, though not mentioning Theodore by name, follows in his footsteps[594]. The same opinion is also expressed in a note ascribed to Photius in the [OE]cumenian Catena. This view seems to have been very widely entertained in ancient times. It possibly underlies the Latin Version ‘ea quæ Laodicensium est’[595]: it is distinctly expressed in the rendering of the Peshito, ‘that which was written by the Laodiceans’[596]. At a more recent date too it found great favour. It was adopted on the one hand by Calvin[597] and Beza[598] and Davenant and Lightfoot[599], on the other by Baronius[600] and à Lapide and Estius, besides other very considerable names[601]. Latterly its popularity has declined, but it has secured the support of one or two commentators even in the present century.

Footnote 592:

_ad loc._ τινὲς λέγουσιν ὅτι οὐχὶ τὴν Παύλου πρὸς αὐτοὺς ἀπεσταλμένην,
ἀλλὰ τὴν παρ’ αὐτῶν Πάυλῳ· οὐ γὰρ εἶπε τὴν πρὸς _Λαοδικέας_ ἀλλὰ
τὴν ἐκ _Λαοδικείας_.

Footnote 593:

Rab. Maur. _Op._ VI. p. 540 (Migne) ‘Non quia ad Laodicenses scribit.
Unde quidam falsam epistolam ad Laodicenses ex nomine beati Pauli
confingendam esse existimaverunt; nec enim erat vera epistola.
Æstimaverunt autem quidam illam esse, quæ in hoc loco est significata.
Apostolus vero non [_ad_] _Laodicenses_ dicit sed _ex Laodicea_; quam
illi scripserunt ad apostolum, in quam aliqua reprehensionis digna
inferebantur, quam etiam hac de causa jussit apud eos legi, ut ipsi
reprehendant seipsos discentes quæ de ipsis erant dicta’ (see _Spic.
Solesm._ I. p. 133) etc.

Footnote 594:

After repeating the argument based on the expression τὴν ἐκ
Λαοδικείας, Theodoret says εἰκὸς δὲ αὐτοὺς ἢ τὰ ἐν Κολασσαῖς γενόμενα
αἰτιάσασθαι ἢ τὰ αὐτὰ τούτοις νενοσηκέναι.

Footnote 595:

This however may be questioned. On the other hand Beza (_ad loc._),
Whitaker (_Disputation on Scripture_ pp. 108, 303, 468 sq., 526, 531,
Parker Society’s ed.), and others, who explain the passage in this
way, urge that it is required by the Greek ἐκ Λαοδικείας, and complain
that the other interpretation depends on the erroneous Latin
rendering.

Footnote 596:

Or, ‘that which was written from Laodicea.’ The difference depends on
the vocalisation of ܠܕܝܩܝܐ which may be either (1) ‘Laodicea,’ as in
vv. 13, 15, or (2) ‘the Laodiceans,’ as in the previous clause in this
same ver. 16.

Footnote 597:

Calvin is very positive; ‘Bis hallucinati sunt qui Paulum arbitrati
sunt ad Laodicenses scripsisse. Non dubito quin epistola fuerit ad
Paulum missa.... Impostura autem nimis crassa fuit, quod nebulo nescio
quis hoc prætextu epistolam supponere ausus est adeo insulsam, ut
nihil a Pauli spiritu magis alienum fingi queat.’ The last sentence
reveals the motive which unconsciously led so many to adopt this
unnatural interpretation of St Paul’s language.

Footnote 598:

_ad loc._ ‘Multo fœdius errarunt qui ex hoc loco suspicati sunt
quandam fuisse epistolam Pauli ad Laodicenses ... quum potius
significet Paulus epistolam aliquam ad se missam Laodicea, aut potius
qua responsuri essent Laodicenses Colossensibus.’

Footnote 599:

_Works_ II. p. 326.

Footnote 600:

_Ann. Eccl._ s. a. 60, § xiii.

Footnote 601:

e.g. Tillemont _Mem. Eccl._ p. 576.

[Sidenote: Reasons for it.]

The underlying motive of this interpretation was to withdraw the support which the apocryphal epistle seemed to derive from this reference, without being obliged at the same time to postulate a lost epistle of St Paul. The critical argument adduced in its support was the form of expression, τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας. [Sidenote: Objections to it.]The whole context however points to a different explanation. The Colossian and Laodicean Epistles are obviously regarded as in some sense companion epistles, of which the Apostle directs an interchange between the two Churches. And again, if the letter in question had been written by the Laodiceans to St Paul, why should he enjoin the Colossians to get it from Laodicea? How could he assume that a copy had been kept by the Laodiceans; or, if kept, would be given up when required? Indeed the difficulties in this hypothesis are so great, that nothing but the most imperious requirements of the Greek language would justify its acceptance. But the expression in the original makes no such demand. It is equally competent for us to explain τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας either ‘the letter written from Laodicea’, or ‘the letter to be procured from Laodicea’, as the context may suggest. The latter accords at least as well with Greek usage as the former[602].

Footnote 602:

See the note on iv. 16.

[Sidenote: Views respecting the person addressed.]

The vast majority of those who interpret the expression in this way assume that the letter was written to (α) St Paul. The modifications of this view, which suppose it addressed to some one else, need hardly be considered. The theory for instance, which addresses it to (β) Epaphras[603], removes none of the objections brought against the simpler hypothesis. Another opinion, which takes (γ) the Colossians themselves to have been the recipients[604], does indeed dispose of one difficulty, the necessity of assuming a copy kept by the Laodiceans, but it is even more irreconcileable with the language of the context. Why then should St Paul so studiously charge them to see that they read it? Why above all should he say καὶ ὑμεῖς, ‘_ye also_’, when they were the only persons who would read it as a matter of course?

Footnote 603:

e.g. Storr _Opusc._ II. p. 124 sq.

Footnote 604:

So for instance Corn. à Lapide, as an alternative, ‘vel certe ad ipsos
Colossenses, ut vult Theodor.’; but I do not find anything of the kind
in Theodoret. This view also commends itself to Beza.

[Sidenote: 2. A letter written from Laodicea by St Paul.]