St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon A...

539. More probably the latter. In Rom. xvi the terminations -α and ᾶς for the feminine and masculine names respectively are carefully reproduced in the Harclean Version. In ver. 15 indeed we have Julias, but the translator doubtless considered the name to be a contraction for Julianus. The proper Syriac termination -a seems only to be employed for the Greek -ας in very familiar names such as Barnaba, Luka.

540. The meaning of this word πλήρωμα is the subject of a paper De vocis πλήρωμα vario sensu in N. T. in Storr’s Opusc. Acad. I. p. 144 sq., and of an elaborate note in Fritzsche’s Rom. II. p. 469 sq. Storr attempts to show that it always has an active sense ‘id quod implet’ in the New Testament. Fritzsche rightly objects to assigning a persistently active sense to a word which has a directly passive termination: and he himself attributes to it two main senses, ‘id quod impletur’ and ‘id quo res impletur’, the latter being the more common. He apparently considers that he has surmounted the difficulties involved in Storr’s view, for he speaks of this last as a passive sense, though in fact it is nothing more than ‘id quod implet’ expressed in other words. In Rom. xiii. 10 πλήρωμα νόμου he concedes an active sense ‘legis completio’, h. e. ‘observatio’.

541. The English word complement has two distinct senses. It is either (i) the complete set, the entire quantity or number, which satisfies a given standard or cadre, as e.g. the complement of a regiment; or (ii) the number or quantity which, when added to a preexisting number or quantity, produces completeness; as e.g. the complement of an angle, i.e. the angle by which it falls short of being a complete right angle. In other words, it is either the whole or the part. As a theological term, πλήρωμα corresponds to the first of these two senses; and with this meaning alone the word ‘complement’ will be used in the following dissertation.

542. The first of the two passages is contained in the short Syriac recension of the Ignatian Epistles, though loosely translated; the other is wanting there. I need not stop to enquire whether the second was written by St Ignatius himself or by an interpolator. The interpolated epistles, if they be interpolated, can hardly be later than the middle of the second century and are therefore early enough to afford valuable illustrations of the Apostles’ language.

543. The common texts read καὶ πληρώματι, but there can be little doubt (from a comparison of the authorities) that καὶ should be struck out. The present Syriac text has et perfectæ for πληρώματι; but there is no reason for supposing that the Syriac translator had another reading before him. A slight change in the Syriac, ܒܫܘܡܠܝܐ for ܘܡܫܡܠܝܐ, would bring this Version into entire accordance with the Greek; and the confusion was the more easy, because the latter word occurs in the immediate context. Or the translator may have indulged in a paraphrase according to his wont; just as in the longer Latin Version πληρώματι here is translated repletæ.

544. See the notes on Col. i. 15 sq.

545. de Præm. et Pæn. 18 (II. p. 425). The important words are ὡς ἕκαστον οἶκον πλήρωμα εἶναι πολυανθρώπου συγγενείας, μηδενὸς ἐλλειφθέντος ἢ μέρους ἢ ὀνόματος τῶν ὅσα ἐπιφημίζεται κ.τ.λ. The construction of the subsequent part of the sentence is obscure; and for ὁμοίους we should probably read ὁμοίως.

546. Arist. Pol. iv. 4 (p. 1291).

547. See the notes on Col. ii. 19 (p. 266).

548. Ephes. v. 27 sq.

549. The Apostle in this passage (Ephes. iv. 13) is evidently contemplating the collective body, and not the individual believers. He writes οἱ πάντες, not πάντες, and ἄνδρα τέλειον, not ἄνδρας τελέιους. As he has said before ἑνὶ ἑκάστῳ ἡμῶν ἐδόθη [ἡ] χάρις κατὰ τὸ μέτρον τῆς δωρεᾶς τοῦ Χριστοῦ, so now he describes the result of these various partial graces bestowed on individuals to be the unity and mature growth of the whole, ‘the building up of the body’, μεχρὶ καταντήσωμεν οἱ πάντες εἰς τὴν ἑνότητα ... εἰς ἄνδρα τέλειον, εἰς μέτρον ἡλικίας τοῦ πληρώματος τοῦ Χριστοῦ. This corporate being must grow up into the one colossal Man, the standard of whose spiritual and moral stature is nothing less than the pleroma of Christ Himself.

550. Matt. v. 48.

551. iii. 16. 1 ‘Quoniam autem sunt qui dicunt Iesum quidem receptaculum Christi fuisse, in quem desuper quasi columbam descendisse, et quum indicasset innominabilem Patrem, incomprehensibiliter et invisibiliter intrasse in pleroma’.

552. i. 26. 1 ‘post baptismum descendisse in eum ab ea principalitate, quæ est super omnia, Christum figura columbæ; et tunc annuntiasse incognitum Patrem et virtutes perfecisse: in fine autem revolasse iterum Christum de Iesu et Iesum passum esse et resurrexisse, etc.’

553. iii. 11. 1 ‘iterum revolasse in suum pleroma’. This expression is the connecting link between the other two passages. This third passage is quoted more at length, above, p. 112: but I ought to have stated there that illi is referred by several critics to the Valentinians, and that certainly some characteristic errors of the Valentinian teaching are specified immediately after. The probable explanation seems to be that illi is intended to include the Gnostics generally, and that Irenæus mentions in illustration the principal errors of Gnostic teaching, irrespective of the schools to which they belong. He goes on to say that St John in his Gospel desired to exclude ‘omnia talia’.

554. I have not been able however to verify the statement in Harvey’s Irenæus I. p. lxxiii that ‘The Valentinian notion of a spiritual marriage between the souls of the elect and the angels of the Pleroma originated with Cerinthus’.

555. See p. 101 sq., and the notes on i. 19.

556. p. 107 sq.

557. Hippol. R. H. vii. 22 φεύγει γὰρ πάνυ καὶ δέδοικε τὰς κατὰ προβολὴν τῶν γεγονότων οὐσίας ὁ Βασιλείδης. Basilides asked why the absolute First Cause should be likened to a spider spinning threads from itself, or a smith or carpenter working up his materials. The later Basilideans, apparently influenced by Valentinianism, superadded to the teaching of their founder in this respect; but the strong language quoted by Hippolytus leaves no doubt about the mind of Basilides himself.

558. For the various modes in which the relation of the absolute first principle to the pleroma was represented in different Valentinian schools, see Iren. i. 1. 1, i. 2. 4, i. 11. 1, 3, 5, i. 12. 1, etc. The main distinction is that stated in the text: the first principle was represented in two ways; either (i) as a monad, outside the pleroma; or (ii) as a dyad, a syzygy, most commonly under the designation of Βυθός and Σιγή, included within the pleroma but fenced off from the other æons. The Valentinian doctrine as given by Hippolytus (vi. 29 sq.) represents the former type. There are good, though perhaps not absolutely decisive, reasons for supposing that this father gives the original teaching of Valentinus himself. For (1) this very doctrine of the monad seems to point to an earlier date. It is the link which connects the system of Valentinus not only with Pythagoreanism to which (as Hippolytus points out) he was so largely indebted, but also with the teaching of the earlier heresiarch Basilides, whose first principle likewise was a monad, the absolute nothing, the non-existent God. The conception of the first principle as a dyad seems to have been a later, and not very happy, modification of the doctrine of the founder, being in fact an extension of the principle of syzygies which Valentinus with a truer philosophical conception had restricted to the derived essences.

(2) The exposition of Hippolytus throughout exhibits a system at once more consistent and more simple, than the luxuriant developments of the later Valentinians, such as Ptolemæus and Marcus.

(3) The sequence of his statement points to the same conclusion. He gives a consecutive account of some one system, turning aside from time to time to notice the variations of different Valentinian schools from this standard and again resuming the main thread of his exposition. It seems most natural therefore that he should have taken the system of the founder as his basis. On the other hand Irenæus (i. 11. 1) states that Valentinus represented the first principle as a dyad (Ἄρρητος or Βυθὁς, and Σιγή): but there is no evidence that he had any direct or indirect knowledge of the writings of Valentinus himself, and his information was derived from the later disciples of the school, more especially from the Ptolemæans.

559. Iren. i. 4. 1, 2, ii. 3. 1, ii. 4. 1, 3, ii. 5. 1, ii. 8. 1–3, ii. 14. 3, iii. 25. 6, 7, etc.

560. Iren. i. 6. 3, i. 7. 1 sq., ii. 14. 3, ii. 15. 3 sq., ii. 20. 5, ii. 30. 3, etc.

561. Iren. i. 5. 2, ii. 14. 3; comp. Hippol. vi. 34.

562. Iren. i. 4. 1 λέγουσιν ἐν σκιαῖς [σκιᾶς] καὶ κενώματος τόποις )εκβεβράσθαι κ.τ.λ. The Greek MS reads καὶ σκηνώματος, but the rendering of the early Latin translation ‘in umbræ [et?] vacuitatis locis’ leaves no doubt about the word in the original text. Tertullian says of this Achamoth (adv. Valent. 14) ‘explosa est in loca luminis aliena ... in vacuum atque inane illud Epicuri’. See note 567.

563. Iren. i. 2. 6, Hippol. vi. 32.

564. They quoted, as referring to this descent of the second Christ into the kenoma, the words of St Paul, Phil. ii. 7 ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν; Clem. Alex. Exc. Theod. 35 (p. 978).

565. Iren. i. 7. 1 καὶ τοῦτο εἶναι νυμφίον καὶ νύμφην, νυμφῶνα δὲ τὸ πᾶν πλήρωμα: comp. Hippol. vi. 34 ὁ νυμφίος αὐτῆς.

566. This language is so frequent that special references are needless. In Iren. ii. 5. 3 we have a still stronger expression, ‘in ventre pleromatis’.

567. Iren. ii. 14. 3 ‘Umbram autem et vacuum ipsorum a Democrito et Epicuro sumentes sibimetipsis aptaverunt, quum illi primum multum sermonem fecerint de vacuo et de atomis’.

568. Hippol. vi. 31 καλεῖται δὲ ὅρος μὲν ὁῦτος ὅτι ἀφορίζει ἀπὸ τοῦ πληρώματος ἔξω τὸ ὑστέρημα· μετοχὲυς δε ὅτι μετέχει καὶ τοῦ ὑστερήματος (i.e. as standing between the πλήρωμα and ὑστέρημα)· σταυρὸς δέ, ὅτι πέπηγεν ἀκλινῶς καὶ ἀμετανόητως, ὡς μὴ δύνασθαι μηδὲν τοῦ ὑστερήματος καταγενέσθαι ἐγγὺς τῶν ἐντὸς πληρώματος αἴωνων. Irenæus represents the Marcosians as designating the Demiurge καρπὸς ὑστερήματος i. 17. 2, i. 19. 1, ii. præf. 1, ii. 1. 1 (comp. i. 14. 1). This was perhaps intended originally as an antithesis to the name of the Christ, who was καρπὸς πληρώματος. The Marcosians however apparently meant Sophia Achamoth by this ὑστερημα. This transference from the whole to the part would be in strict accordance with their terminology: for as they called the supramundane æons πληρώματα (Iren. i. 14. 2, 5; quoted in Hippol. vi. 43, 46), so also by analogy they might designate the mundane Powers ὑστερήματα (comp. Iren. i. 16. 3). The term, as it occurs in the document used by Hippolytus, plainly denotes the whole mundane region.

Hippolytus does not use the word κένωμα, though so common in Irenæus. This fact seems to point to the earlier date of the Valentinian document which he uses, and so to bear out the result arrived at in a previous note (p. 332) that we have here a work of Valentinus himself. The word ὑστέρημα appears also in Exc. Theod. 22 (p. 974).

569. e.g. Hippol. vi. 34, Iren. i. 2. 6. See especially Iren. ii. 7. 3 ‘Quoniam enim pleroma ipsorum triginta Aeones sunt, ipsi testantur’.

570. See the passages from Irenæus quoted above, note 568; comp. Exc. Theod. 32, 33 (p. 977). Similarly λόγοι is a synonym for the Æons, ὁμωνύμως τῷ Λόγῳ, Exc. Theod. 25 (p. 975).

571. Heracleon in Orig. in Ioann. xiii, iv. p. 205 sq. The passages are collected in Stieren’s Irenæus p. 947 sq. See especially p. 950 ὄιεται [ὁ Ἡρακλέων] τῆς Σαμαρείτιδος τὸν λεγόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἄνδρα τὸ πλήρωμα εἶναι αὐτῆς , ἵνα σὺν ἐκείνῳ γενομένη πρὸς τὸν σωτῆρα κομίσεσθαι παρ’ αὐτοῦ τὴν δύναμιν καὶ τὴν ἕνωσιν καὶ τὴν ἀνάκρασιν τὴν πρὸς τὸ πλήρωμα αὑτῆς δυνηθῇ· οὐ γὰρ περὶ ἀνδρός, φησί, κοσμικοῦ ἔλεγεν ... λέγων αὐτῇ τὸν σωτῆρα εἰρηκέναι, Φώνησόν σου τὸν ἄνδρα καὶ ἐλθὲ ἐνθάδε· δηλοῦντα τὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ πληρώματος σύζυγον . Lower down Heracleon says ἦν αὐτῆς ὁ ἀνὴρ ἐν τῷ Αἰῶνι. By this last expression I suppose he means that the great æon Man of the Ogdoad, the eternal archetype of mankind, comprises in itself archetypes corresponding to each individual man and woman, not indeed of the whole human race (for the Valentinian would exclude the psychical and carnal portion from any participation in this higher region) but of the spiritual portion thereof.

572. Origen expressly states that Heracleon read ἕξ for πέντε. The number six was supposed to symbolize the material creature: see Heracleon on ‘the forty and six years’ of John ii. 20 (Stieren p. 947). There is no reason to think that Heracleon falsified the text here; he appears to have found this various reading already in his copy.

573. The expression is ὁ κοινὸς τοῦ πληρώματος καρπὸς in Hippolytus vi. 32, 34, 36 (pp. 190, 191, 192, 193, 196). In Irenæus i. 8. 5 it is καρπὸς παντὸς τοῦ πληρώματος.

574. Iren. i. 2. 6 τελειότατον κάλλος τε καὶ ἄστρον τοῦ πληρώματος.

575. Iren. i. 2. 6, i. 3. 4.