that he formed all the things which came into existence after him, being secretly impelled thereto by his mother. From this circumstance they style him Metropator,[1] Apator, Demiurge, and Father, saying that he is Father of the substances on the right hand, that is, of the animal, but Demiurge of those on the left, that is, of the material, while he is at the same time the king of all. For they say that this Enthymesis, desirous of making all things to the honour of the Æons, formed images of them, or rather that the Saviour[2] did so through her instrumentality. And she, in the image[3] of the invisible Father, kept herself concealed from the Demiurge. But he was in the image of the only-begotten Son, and the angels and archangels created by him were in the image of the rest of the Æons.
2. They affirm, therefore, that he was constituted the Father and God of everything outside of the Pleroma, being the creator of all animal and material substances. For he it was that discriminated these two kinds of existence hitherto confused, and made corporeal from incorporeal substances, fashioned things heavenly and earthly, and became the Framer (Demiurge) of things material and animal, of those on the right and those on the left, of the light and of the heavy, and of those tending upwards as well as of those tending downwards. He created also seven heavens, above which they say that he, the Demiurge, exists. And on this account they term him Hebdomas, and his mother Achamoth Ogdoas, preserving the number of the first-begotten and primary Ogdoad of the Pleroma. They affirm,
- ↑ Metropator, as proceeding only from his mother Achamoth: Apator, as having no male progenitor.
- ↑ Harvey remarks, "The Valentinian Saviour being an aggregation of all the æonic perfections, the images of them were reproduced by the spiritual conception of Achamoth beholding the glory of Σοτήρ. The reader will not fail to observe that every successive development is the reflex of a more divine antecedent."
- ↑ The relation indicated seems to be as follows: Achamoth, after being formed "according to knowledge," was outside of the Pleroma as the image of Propator, the Demiurge was as Nous, and the mundane angels which he formed corresponded to the other Æons of the Pleroma.
