Note 388 — Chapter IX · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: VALENTINUS

This appears in the Excerpta Theodoti, fr. 63, Migne’s Patrol. Graeci, t. IX. col. 689: Ἡ μὲν οὖν πνευματικῶν ἀνάπαυσις ἐν Κυριακῇ ἐν Ὀγδοάδι ἡ Κυριακὴ ὀνομάζεται· παρὰ τῇ μητρὶ ἔχοντα τὰς ψυχὰς τὰ ἐνδύματα ἄχρι συντελείας· αἱ δὲ ἄλλαι πισταὶ ψυχαὶ παρὰ τῷ Δημιονυργῷ· περὶ δὲ τὴν συντέλειαν ἀναχώρουσι καὶ αὐτοὶ εἰς Ὀγδοάδας. Εἶτα τὸ δεῖπνον τὸν γάμον κοινὸν πάντων τῶν σωζωθέντων, ἄχρις ἂν ἀπισωθῇ πάντα καὶ ἄλληλα γνωρίσῃ. “Therefore the repose of the Spirituals in [the dwelling] of the Lord, that is, in the Ogdoad, is called the Lord’s rest” (cf. Irenaeus, Bk I. cc. 1, 9, p. 46, Harvey): “the garments [i.e. natures] containing the souls [will remain] with the Mother until the Consummation. And the other faithful souls (will remain) with the Demiurge; and at the Consummation they will withdraw, and they also will go into the Ogdoad. Then will be the Wedding Feast of all those who are saved until all things shall be made equal and all things mutually made known.” This heavenly banquet, of which we may be quite sure Valentinus made the Marriage in Cana a type, will be met with again in the worship of Mithras (Chapter XII, infra). But it was also well known to the Orphics (see Abel’s Orphica, Frag. 227, etc.), and the question repeats itself: Did the Orphics borrow the idea from the Persians, or the Mithraists from the Orphics?