{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/003/0030547.htm","path":"chr/ecf/003/0030547.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/003/0030547.htm","text":"Chapter XXXII.\u2014Indignant Irony Exposing the Valentinian Fable About the Judicial Treatment of Mankind at the Last Judgment. The Immorality of the Doctrine.\nAs for the human race, its end will be to the following effect:\u2014To all which bear the earthy 6902 and material mark there accrues an entire destruction, because \u201call flesh is grass,\u201d 6903 and amongst these is the soul of mortal man, except when it has found salvation by faith. The souls of just men, that is to say, our souls, will be conveyed to the Demiurge in the abodes of the middle region. We are duly thankful; we shall be content to be classed with our god, in whom lies our own origin. 6904 Into the palace of the Pleroma nothing of the animal nature is admitted\u2014nothing but the spiritual swarm of Valentinus. There, then, the first process is the despoiling of men themselves, that is, men within the Pleroma. 6905 Now this despoiling consists of the putting off of the souls in which they appear to be clothed, which they will give back to their Demiurge as they had obtained 6906 them from him. They will then become wholly intellectual spirits\u2014impalpable, 6907 invisible 6908 \u2014and in this state will be readmitted invisibly to the Pleroma\u2014stealthily, if the case admits of the idea. 6909 What then? They will be dispersed amongst the angels, the attendants on Soter. As sons, do you suppose? Not at all. As servants, then? No, not even so. Well, as phantoms? Would that it were nothing more! Then in what capacity, if you are ashamed to tell us? In the capacity of brides. Then will they end 6910 their Sabine rapes with the sanction of wedlock. This will be the guerdon of the spiritual, this the recompense of their faith! Such fables have their use. Although but a Marcus or a Gaius, 6911 full-grown in this flesh of ours, with a beard and such like proofs (of virility,) it may be a stern husband, a father, a grandfather, a great-grandfather (never mind what, in fact, if only a male), you may perhaps in the bridal-chamber of the Pleroma\u2014I have already said so tacitly 6912 \u2014even become the parent by an angel of some \u00c6on of high numerical rank. 6913 For the right celebration of these nuptials, instead of the torch and veil, I suppose that secret fire is then to burst forth, which, after devastating the whole existence of things, will itself also be reduced to nothing at last, after everything has been reduced to ashes; and so their fable too will be ended. 6914 But I, too, p. 519 am no doubt a rash man, in having exposed so great a mystery in so derisive a way: I ought to be afraid that Achamoth, who did not choose to make herself known even to her own son, would turn mad, that Theletus would be enraged, that Fortune 6915 would be irritated. But I am yet a liege-man of the Demiurge. I have to return after death to the place where there is no more giving in marriage, where I have to be clothed upon rather than to be despoiled,\u2014where, even if I am despoiled of my sex, I am classed with angels\u2014not a male angel, nor a female one. There will be no one to do aught against me, nor will they then find any male energy in me.\nSee above, in ch. xxiv. p. 515.\n518:6905 518:6906 518:6907 518:6908 518:6909\nSi ita est: or, \u201csince such is the fact.\u201d\n518:6910 518:6911 518:6912\nThis parenthetic clause, \u201ctacendo jam dixi,\u201d perhaps means, \u201cI say this with shame,\u201d \u201cI would rather not have to say it.\u201d\n518:6913\nThe common reading is, \u201cOnesimum \u00c6onem,\u201d an \u00c6on called Onesimus, in supposed allusion to Philemon\u2019s Onesimus. But this is too far-fetched. Oehler discovers in \u201cOnesimum\u201d the corruption of some higher number ending in \u201cesimum.\u201d\n518:6914\nThis is Oehler\u2019s idea of \u201cet nulla jam fabula.\u201d Rigaltius, however, gives a good sense to this clause: \u201cAll will come true at last; there will be no fable.\u201d\n519:6915\nThe same as Macariotes, in ch. viii. above, p. 507.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Tertullian: Part II: Indign...","type":"page"}