Note 381 — Chapter IX · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: VALENTINUS

So Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 9, pp. 44, 45, Harvey, says that they [the Valentinians] say that the seven heavens are endowed with intelligence (νοητούς) and that they suppose them to be angels, and that the Demiurge is himself an angel like God. Also that Paradise is a heaven above the third, and that a fourth angel rules (?) there, and that from him Adam took somewhat while talking to him. Whatever this story may mean, it is curious to see how readily the Gnostics identified in name a heavenly place with its ruler, as in the titles of kings and peers.