Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Anti-Marcion/Against the Valentinians/XIII

Chapter XIII.&#8212;First Part of the Subject, Touching the Constitution of the Pleroma, Briefly Recapitulated.&#160; Transition to the Other Part, Which is Like a Play Outside the Curtain.

In this series, then, is contained the first emanation of &#198;ons, who are alike born, and are married, and produce offspring: there are the most dangerous fortunes of Sophia in her ardent longing for the Father, the most seasonable help of Horos, the expiation of her Enthymesis and accruing Passion, the instruction of Christ and the Holy Spirit, their tutelar reform of the &#198;ons, the piebald ornamentation of Soter, the consubstantial retinue of the angels. All that remains, according to you, is the fall of the curtain and the clapping of hands. What remains in my opinion, however, is, that you should hear and take heed. At all events, these things are said to have been played out within the company of the Pleroma, the first scene of the tragedy.&#160; The rest of the play, however, is beyond the curtain&#8212;I mean outside of the Pleroma. And yet if it be such within the bosom of the Father, within the embrace of the guardian Horos, what must it be outside, in free space, where God did not exist?