Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Volume 3) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read 'Against the Valentinians'.
My summary
This week Tertullian writes against the teachings of the Valentinians.
We learn much about the Valentinians teachings, including their positions on the origin of:
(i) God;
(ii) Jesus;
(iii) matter;
(iv) this world;
(v) Satan;
(vi) humans.
What grabbed me
So much heretical teaching packed into this one work!
I guess the worst is the idea that the Father was created by another god: ' And first of all (she does) what cannot be described and read, and heard of, without an intense horror at the blasphemy thereof: she produces this God of ours, the God of all except of the heretics, the Father and Creator and King of all things, which are inferior to him. For from him do they proceed. If, however, they proceed from him, and not rather from Achamoth, or if only secretly from her, without his perceiving her, he was impelled to all that he did, even like a puppet which is moved from the outside. In fact, it was owing to this very ambiguity about the personal agency in the works which were done, that they coined for him the mixed name of (Motherly Father), whilst his other appellations were distinctly assigned according to the conditions and positions of his works: so that they call him Father in relation to the animal substances to which they give the place of honour on his right hand; whereas, in respect of the material substances which they banish to his left hand, they name him Demiurgus; whilst his title King designates his authority over both classes, nay over the universe.'
It makes me blush to read such thoughts.
Next week's reading
Read 'On the flesh of Christ'.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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