(I) Valentinus has a system of thirty aeons, but the quite shadowy plurality of ten and twelve aeons (the Dekas and the Dodekas) of the Valentinian system we may at once set aside as mere fantastical accretions. We have left only a group of eight celestial beings, the so-called Ogdoas, and of these eight figures four again are peculiar to this system.
(2) The first pair of aeons, Bythos and Sige, is an original innovation of the Valentinian school, and clearly betrays a mon istic tendency. According to Irenaeus's account of the "Gnostics" (i. 29), their theory was that Sophia casts herself into the primal substratum of matter (Bythos) to be found outside the celestial world of aeons. But in the Valentinian system matter is not orig inally and irretrievably separated from the higher celestial world, but the latter originally exists for itself alone ; the fall or dis turbance is accomplished within the celestial world, and the mate rial world first comes into existence through the fall.
(3) There remain a double pair of aeons, the Father and Truth, the Anthropos and the Ekklesia. With the celestial Primal Man— of whom the myth originally relates that he has sunk into matter and then raised himself up from it again—is associated the com munity of the faithful and the redeemed, who are to share the same fate with him.
(4) In the true Valentinian system the so-called Christos is the son of the fallen Aeon, who is thus conceived as an individual. Sophia, who in a frenzy of love had sought to draw near to the unattainable Bythos, brings forth, through her longing for that higher being, an aeon who is higher and purer than herself, and at once rises into the celestial worlds. Among the Gnostics of Irenaeus we find a kindred conception, but with a slight difference. Here Christos and Sophia appear as brother and sister, Christos representing the higher and Sophia the lower element. In the enig matic figure of Christos we again find hidden the original concep tion of the Primal Man, who sinks down into matter but rises again. (In the later Valentinian systems this origin of the Christos is entirely obscured, and Christ, together with the Holy Spirit, becomes a later offspring of the celestial world of aeons ; this may be looked upon as an approximation to the Christian dogma.)
(5) A figure entirely peculiar to Valentinian Gnosticism is that of Horos (the Limiter). The name is perhaps an echo of the Egyptian Horus. The peculiar task of Horos is to separate the fallen aeons from the upper world of aeons. He becomes a kind of world-creative power, who in this capacity helps to construct an ordered world out of Sophia and her passions. He is also called, curiously enough, Stauros (cross), and we frequently meet with references to the figure of Stauros. But we must not be in too great a hurry to assume that this is a Christian figure. A Platonic conception may have been at work here. The cross can also stand for the wondrous aeon on whom depends the ordering and life of the world, and thus Horos-Stauros appears here as the first redeemer of Sophia from her passions, and as the orderer of the creation of the world which now begins. The figure of Horos Stauros was often assimilated to that of the Christian Redeemer.
(6) The dualism of the two separate worlds of light and dark ness was thus overcome. This derivation of the material world from the passions of the fallen Sophia is, however, affected by an older theory according to which the son of Sophia, whom she forms on the model of the Christos who has disappeared in the higher heavens, becomes the Demiourgos, who with his angels now appears as the real world-creative power. These two conceptions had now to be combined at all costs. And it is interesting to observe here what efforts were made to give the Demiourgos a better position. According to the older concep tion, he was an imperfect, ignorant, half-evil and malicious off spring of his mother, who has already been deprived of any par ticle of light (Irenaeus i. 29, 30). In the Valentinian systems he appears as the fruit of Sophia's repentance and conversion. He is no longer called Jaldabaoth, but has been assigned the better name, drawn from the philosophy of Plato, of Demiourgos. The Demiourgos of the Gnostic corresponded to the God of the Old Testament, which again suggests a compromise with the Christian faith.