Re: Origines and the Valentianer

21
One other thing:
You quoted Wikipedia, about the sequences of vowels found in the "Gospel of the Egyptians":
One explanation could be that these vowels are connected to the divine name YHWH. Another possibility is that the vowels could represent a secret, sacred way for the soul of the reader to move closer to gnosis.
In Sethian Gnosticism the name of God, or a god, is Iao, which is all vowels. That is easily expandable to include all seven Greek vowels. Then the combinations would be for meditative purposes, as with Abulafia in Kabbalah later. I think there are examples of other combinatorial sequences in the Askew Codex, the Secret Books of somebody or other, but I haven't looked recently. Such combinatorial practices are of course also in the Sefer Yetzirah.

Re: Origines and the Valentianer

22
mikeh wrote:The Hermetic Agathodaimon is not the same as the alchemist named Agathodaimon.
For "Seth" it's just a curious name, which also was used. The words "Agathodaimon" and "Agathodaemon" are just a curious modern contradiction, the Greek used their letter and the relevant letter was a Iota as in Aion and Aeon. Perhaps the alchemist just used a spectacular pseudonym, as "Hermes Trismegistus".

Well, just a case for "disambiguation" ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agathodaem ... biguation)

For Seth it's interesting, that he suddenly in 9th century got a pyramide made in his honor by an Islamic historian, perhaps due to some memory to the Pharao Sethos (well, too young to have made pyramides).
This "Sethos" (or another one) - interestingly - became the figure of a popular roman in the first half of 18th century and influenced Mozart's "Zauberflöte", written by an Abbe Terrasson (1731).

As far I get it from my researches, Seth (the biblical) became rather popular and strong in a larger region in the Orient. In the Christian bible he's rather reduced, perhaps due to the condition, that the Sethians were a competing religion in the relevant time (4th century AD).
In Sethian Gnosticism the name of God, or a god, is Iao, which is all vowels. That is easily expandable to include all seven Greek vowels. Then the combinations would be for meditative purposes, as with Abulafia in Kabbalah later. I think there are examples of other combinatorial sequences in the Askew Codex, the Secret Books of somebody or other, but I haven't looked recently. Such combinatorial practices are of course also in the Sefer Yetzirah.
The SY merged various things, which were around at the time of its production. I focus on the supposed mathematical background of the 32 ways of wisdom, that's interesting enough. Other additional similarities one better leaves aside, otherwise I fear, it would become too much.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

33 sons and 23 daughters

23
I quoted from wiki ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth
According to Seder Olam Rabbah, based on Jewish reckoning, he was born in 130 AM. According to Aggadah, he had 33 sons and 23 daughters [I don't find this]. According to the Seder Olam Rabbah, he died in 1042 AM.
I find no confirmation for this. Instead I find, that a footnote in a Josephus Flavius edition of 1841 dominates the internet opinions:

https://books.google.de/books?id=Kk0GAA ... &q&f=false
Image


According this, not Seth and his not very clear wife Norea (or other names, http://www.sbl-site.org/assets/pdfs/pub ... .front.pdf reports the insecurties) had 33 sons and 23 daughters, but Adam + Eve.
This note misses also further confirmation and stays anonymous.

In competition to the 33+22 for Adam + Eve stand the 30 (+) pairs in the Armenian Adamschriften of Preuschen above mentioned, and also the 28 from Ranke-Grace, concluded on the base of an old Welsh poem "Yr Awdil Vraith".
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) and Panarion

24
Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) also wrote about heresies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolytus_of_Rome

I capture the note, that Hippolytus ...
Hippolytus I begins his enumeration of the thirty-two heresies by mentioning Dositheos; hence this sect is made to appear older than the Sadducees,[5] and on this heresy is based the system of Philaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dositheos_%28Samaritan%29

The 32 .... maybe just accident, maybe intention.

This might be the relevant text, but if it is it, it doesn't contain a 32 ... perhaps not complete, or a another text is the reference ...
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050105.htm

Added later: Another text of Hippolytus, also against heresies:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050110.htm

It contains the matter with the 32 children of Ham (earlier mentioned below for the notes of Epiphanius) ...
Noah had three sons— Shem, Ham, and Japheth. From these the entire family of man was multiplied, and every quarter of the earth owes its inhabitants in the first instance to these. For the word of God to them prevailed, when the Lord said, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. So great efficacy had that one word that from the three sons of Noah are begotten in the family 72 children—(viz.,) from Shem, 25; from Japheth, 15; and from Ham, 32. Unto Ham, however, these 32 children are born in accordance with previous declarations.

**********
*************************************

Selections from
The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis
A Treatise Against Eighty Sects
http://www.masseiana.org/panarion_bk1.htm#7.
Nahor was born as a son to Serug and became the father of Terah. The making of images with clay and pottery began at this point, with the art of this Terah. And with him the world arrived at its twentieth generation, comprising 3332 years.
I've to control that still. In my bible version it's just the year 1878, and Terah is the 19th generation. There are different chronologies and slightly different figures ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_Bible.

Somehow they must have arranged in 164 BC, that they had 4000 years ...
4000: (164 BCE) Rededication of the Temple

The final period is the 374 years between the Edict of Cyrus (538 BCE) and the re-dedication of the Temple by the Maccabees (164 BCE). The overall 4,000 year cycle is calculated backwards from this point.
My list has the funny condition, that Sem (son of Noah, lived 600 years, died 2158) survived Abraham (lived 175, died 2123, about 10 generations later). Noah was still living (950 years, died 2006), when Abram was born (1948).

**************
And, as I have already explained in the foregoing Sects with regard to the series of generations I dealt with earlier, all humanity then consisted of 72 men, who were princes and patricians—32 of Ham's stock, 15 of Japheth's, and 25 of Shem's. And so the tower and Babylon were built.
Interesting. I don't know, how he got this.
Added later: see above the added note for Hippolytus.
2:1 The Saviour was born at Bethlehem of Judea in the thirty-third year of Herod (would be 8 BC), the forty-second of the Emperor Augustus (would be impossible, I guess; 44 BC or 27 BC might be possible dates for the start of reign; possibly he was adopted earlier ?). He went down into Egypt in the thirty-fifth year of Herod (6 BC) and returned from Egypt after Herod's death (4 BC).
2:2 And so in the thirty-seventh year of that same reign of Herod, when Herod died after a reign of 37 years (4 BC), the child was four years old.
2:3 Archelaus ruled for nine years (deposed 6 AD). When Joseph left Egypt with Mary and the child at the beginning of his reign, hearing that Archelaus was king he went back to the Galilee and at this time settled in Nazareth.
2:4 Archelaus had a son, Herod the Younger (this is considered a brother), and this Herod succeeded him as king in the ninth year of the reign of his father Archelaus; and the years of Christ’s incarnation numbered thirteen.
2:5 In the eighteenth year of Herod surnamed Agrippa Jesus began his preaching and at that time received the baptism of John and preached an 'acceptable year' opposed by no one—Jews, Greeks, Samaritans or anyone else.
2:6 Then he preached a second year, in the face of opposition; and this Herod had reigned for nineteen years while it was the Saviour's thirty-second.Then he preached a second year, in the face of opposition; and this Herod had reigned for nineteen years while it was the Saviour's thirty-second.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Antipas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Archelaus

For the birth of Jesus at wiki ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Jesus

In Book 2 Epiphanius develops very detailed ideas, when Jesus born (5th/6th of January) and that he lived 32 years and 74 days.
https://books.google.de/books?id=DAP-uJ ... 54&f=false

This sounds different from the usual "33" ... in mine culture you're 33, if you have finished the 33rd year, not before. There are other cultures, which handle this different.
Anyway, he calculates there "something", and I don't understand, what he's doing there completely (the text is not complete).

**********************

About Valentinus, his 30 aeons and Hesiod:
2:4 And so, in imitation of Hesiod's Theogony and the thirty so-called gods that are mentioned by Hesiod himself, Valentinus, who had memorized the heathen mythological poetry and adopted the notion from those who had lost the truth in his time and before it, wanted to deceive the world with material just like Hesiod's by changing the names into different ones.

2:5 For he too wants to introduce thirty gods, aeons, and heavens. ...

....

3:1 And this is their mythological romance of the thirty aeons, and their nonsense of a supposed 'spiritual Pleroma' in pairs!6

3:2 If, by way of comparison, one were to set it beside the one in Hesiod, Stesichorus, and the other Greek poets, he would find that, put parallel, they are precisely the same, and would learn from this that the leaders of these systems are professing to speak in mysteries about nothing that is remarkable.
We had his Hesiod question earlier.
Last edited by Huck on 13 Mar 2015, 09:23, edited 2 times in total.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Seth and Sufism

25
Earlier I quoted ...
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth
Islam

... Islamic lore gives Seth an exalted position among the Antediluvian Patriarchs of the Generations of Adam, and some sources even cite Seth as the receiver of a scripture.

.... Seth has also played a role in Islamic mysticism, known as Sufism, and Ibn Arabi included a chapter in his Bezels of Wisdom on Seth, titled "The Wisdom of Expiration in the Word of Seth".[11]

.... Abu l-Hasan al-Masudi writes, "One of the two pyramids (of Giza) is the tomb of Agathodaimon (Seth), the other one is the tomb of Hermes, (Idris, Enoch). Between the two 1000 years elapsed, Agathodaimon was the older one". Additionally, Jean Doresse, in The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics writes, "Seth... is known in Islam, and usually assimilated to Agathodaimon, who is one of the great figures of Hermetic literature. The prophetic prestige with which the Gnostics endowed him, he still possesses, especially in the traditions of various Shi'ite groups, therefore chiefly in Mesopotamia or in Iran. In these particular doctrines the survival of Gnostic themes is ubiquitous and seems immense..."
Added to this ...
from
https://books.google.de/books?id=M1rQIj ... th&f=false

Image


The wiki-article to Sufism doesn't note Seth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism

Seth is involved in the concept of "futuwwah", which a sort of chivalry in Sufism.
http://archive.org/stream/TheBookOfSufi ... i_djvu.txt
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Hippolytus again

26
The page ...
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wace/biodict.h ... %20Romanus
.. has rather good information to Hippolytus.

In his works under point 6 ("Refutation of all Heresies") is noted ...
(a) The Treatise against the Thirty-two Heresies.—The author begins by saying that he had a long time before (πάλαι) published another work against heresy, with less minute exposure of the secret doctrines of the heretics than that which he now proposes to make. Of those for whom the authorship has been claimed, Hippolytus is the only one whom we know to have published a previous work on heresies. The time between the two works would be 20 years at least.
This is, what I searched earlier.

The authorship of Hippolytus is not totally clear, but the argumentation for it looks solid. Information to it is given at point 6. The extant MS is not totally complete (10 books are announced, but the MS starts in the middle of book IV).

https://books.google.de/books?id=aepYpU ... &q&f=false
... gives further info.
Image


Now I understand the pages of Newadvent (already earlier used) better ...

book 1: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050101.htm .... from another source
... book 2 and 3 missing
book 4: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050104.htm
book 5: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050105.htm
book 6: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050106.htm
book 7: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050107.htm
book 8: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050108.htm
book 9: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050109.htm
book 10: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050110.htm

... should give the complete text (as far it is present). Book 5 till book 9 should contain the 32 heresies. I should control that ... before I proceed.

****************

I proceed ...

It's confusing, but I didn't find a clear confirmation for "32 heresies" on the New advent pages. Just counting the different heresies seems hopeless, cause the text isn't structured in this manner.
Looking again in the search engine I found this text:

Image

https://books.google.de/books?id=oNozt3 ... 22&f=false

... which seems to have collected "heresies in groups". The "32 heresies" are mentioned, but the text gives the detail, that the terminus (likely) appears in a "Syntegma" before the "Refutations". Well, I don't know, where this "Syntegma" is.
Otherwise it's mentioned, that the heresies starts with the Naasenes (that's true in chpter 5) and ends (or "culminates") with Noetus (it's true, that Noetus opens chapter 9, if he should be understood as the last, I can't say, but if the Syntegma or Syntagma gives evidence for it, it might be acceptable).

I find here, that the Syntagma is lost ...
https://books.google.de/books?id=nqrCAz ... 32&f=false
Image


So I conclude, that somebody must have used the terminus "32 heresies" and had referred to Hippolytus and his syntagma or his refutations.

Sooooo ...

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Dict ... 9.djvu/503
(4) We pass now from the chronological to the anti-heretical writings; first, the treatise against all heresies, which may have been the earliest work of Hippolytus. It is mentioned in the lists of both Eusebius and Jerome, and a passage is quoted from it in the Paschal Chronicle, though it is not in the list on the chair as we have it, which shews that we cannot build any conclusion on the absence of a name therefrom. The fullest account of this treatise is given by Photius (Cod. 121). He describes it as a small book, βιβλιδάριον, against 32 heresies, beginning with the Dositheans and ending with Noetus and the Noetians; that it purported to be an abstract of discourses of Irenaeus; was written in a clear, dignified style, though not observant of Attic propriety. It denied St. Paul's authorship, of Hebrews. It was probably published in the early years of the episcopate (199–217) of Zephyrinus, to lead up to an assault on Noetianism, then the most formidable heresy at Rome.
... and Photius ...

https://books.google.de/books?id=NCWw27 ... 21&f=false
Image


It isn't easy with these writers about Gnosticism.

Photius is likely this man ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photios_I_ ... tantinople

Image

http://neoskosmos.com/news/en/photius-d ... kakis-2011
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Hippolytus once more

27
The other "32" of Hippolytus (above already noted, "32 children of Ham") appears in the final part; in chapter 27 of 30 in the Xth book, actually the 26th chapter belongs to the same theme. The final 3 talk about the "Doctrine of Truth".
Chapter 26. Jewish Chronology.
Chapter 27. Jewish Chronology continued.
Chapter 28. The Doctrine of the Truth.
Chapter 29. The Doctrine of the Truth continued.
Chapter 30. The Author's Concluding Address.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050110.htm
In chapter 26 we have these sentences:
"In the time of Phaleg, however, arose the dispersion of nations. Now these nations were 72, corresponding with the number of Abraham's children. And the names of these nations we have likewise set down in other books, not even omitting this point in its own proper place."
So we have here the terminus "72 nations" and these relate to "Abraham's children" (and 'I guess, that nobody knows the names of Abraham's children beside few exceptions like Isaac and Ismael).

In chapter 27 we have:
"Noah had three sons— Shem, Ham, and Japheth. From these the entire family of man was multiplied, and every quarter of the earth owes its inhabitants in the first instance to these. For the word of God to them prevailed, when the Lord said, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. So great efficacy had that one word that from the three sons of Noah are begotten in the family 72 children—(viz.,) from Shem, 25; from Japheth, 15; and from Ham, 32. Unto Ham, however, these 32 children are born in accordance with previous declarations."
Here it are again "72 children" and the description of these is found in Genesis 10 (1-32). And they look like "around 72 nations". But they are announced as children of Shem, Ham and Japheth, not as children of Abraham. And they are not always children of them, but grandchildren or later descendants. Nonetheless I counted them in my version of the bible:

Japheth - 14 descendants (7 sons between them)
Ham - 31 descendants (4 sons between them)
Shem - 26 descendants (5 sons between them)
-------------------------------------------------------
totally 71 descendants (16 sons between them)

That's close, but not precise, what Hippolytus wrote. However, a little later in Genesis, Abraham becomes the No. 72. So at least the "72 nations" are correct. And Shem would have then 27 descendants.

Maybe there are other bible versions, in which 15+25+32 are correct.

********************

Somehow the matter is curious.

Ham is the "bad guy" of the three brothers in the situation, when Noah was drunken. Curiously not he, but Kanaan, one of his sons, is cursed by Noah.

Hippolytus writes a book, in which the "32" is used in a bad context : "32 heresies". At the end of this book Ham is connected to the number "32", although "31" would be the right traditional number for his descendants.

At the same time gnostic groups use "30 Aeons" in their theories, possibly inside a higher 32-elements-scheme. These theories likely came from Alexandria, in Egypt and continent Africa. Africa was considered to be Ham-children regions.

Image

Geographic identifications of Flavius Josephus, c. 100 AD, according Genesis text
Green = Shem, Red = Japhed, Blue = Ham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_of_Noah

The wiki link gives some more info to the development of ideas, how the list of Genisis could bee applied to the world of the early centuries AD.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Re: Origines and the Valentianer

28
Good investigating, Huck. Don't forget that Hippolytus covers a lot of the same ground as Irenaeus, and some points may be clearer in one than in the other. For example Hippolytus says, in one of his volumes, for the Valentinians:
And thirty Aeons came into existence along with Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Which is another statement of the 32, maybe still only 30 of them "aeons", but a group of 32 altogether. I hope you have checked for "32" and "thirty-two" and "thirty", etc. in all those New Advent links.

I had read already that Agathadaemon was the teacher/father of Hermes Trismegistus, but not that he was Seth. But why not. It makes perfect sense.

Re: Origines and the Valentianer

29
mikeh wrote:Good investigating, Huck. Don't forget that Hippolytus covers a lot of the same ground as Irenaeus, and some points may be clearer in one than in the other. For example Hippolytus says, in one of his volumes, for the Valentinians:
And thirty Aeons came into existence along with Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Which is another statement of the 32, maybe still only 30 of them "aeons", but a group of 32 altogether. I hope you have checked for "32" and "thirty-two" and "thirty", etc. in all those New Advent links.

I had read already that Agathadaemon was the teacher/father of Hermes Trismegistus, but not that he was Seth. But why not. It makes perfect sense.
Well, we had this earlier ... February 22, not long ago.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1049&start=150#p16141
The author of the picture added two figures ... with that it are 32 figures again: Horus and Eon Jesus

Image


****************

Added later:

I wasn't the first with this 32 instead of 30 ...

The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the "Valentinians"
Einar Thomassen (2006)
https://books.google.de/books?id=kIs9Ub ... ns&f=false

Image
"Syzygy of Jesus and holy spirit" ...

The aeon idea had before different forms and other mathematical ideas ... 1st of March
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1057#p16180
Gnostische Elemente und die Aeonenlehre des Talmud
by "Rabbiner Oppenheim"
Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums - 1855 - Heft 2
http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/c ... ew/2853583

This work ...

1. ... contains a reference to Heinrich Graetz (1817-1891), Geschichte der Juden, Gnosticimus und Judentum
The work seems to be the dissertation of Graetz, published 1846, see ...
https://books.google.de/books?id=38PVG6 ... 22&f=false
I didn't find the text online.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Graetz

2. ... contains a reference to Matter, Geschichte des Gnosticismus

From this author:
Kritische Geschichte des Gnosticismus und seines Einflusses auf die religiösen und philosophischen Sekten der sechs ersten Jahrhunderte der christlichen Zeitrechnung: eine ... Preisschrift, Volume 2
Jacques Matter, Christian H. Dörner
Drechsler, 1833 - 330 pages

3. ... contains notes to different systems of "Aeons". According this ...

a. Basilides calls the Aeons "Uranoi"
compare ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraxas
365 heavens
(somewhere I noted a combination of 365 and 248, which are in Jewish texts used to relate to 613 laws; I forgot the place of this gnostic source)
elsewhere "390 rakias", related in the same context
another relation to "360", called an "old system"
elsewhere "310 Olamot (= Aeons)"
(elsewhere I saw a "320" in similar context, I'd forgotten the place)
"300" is also noted
A lot with values above 300, likely aiming at different calendar systems and the days of the relevant years ...

Then somebody must have gone to 30 cause of the 30 days of an Egyptian month, for this reason various "30 Aeons"
systems, which in the gnostic theology prepared Jesus Christ (+ holy spirit or something similar) as an additional element and the aim of the 30 aeons. This system likely gained some importance for a longer time, but lost the fight ub the definitions, what's heretical and what's not.
Huck
http://trionfi.com

Clementina / 30 + 12

30
Clementina or Clementine literature or Pseudo-Clementine Writings or The Preaching of Peter or Kerygmata Petrou or Clementine Romance ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clementine_literature
... uses 12 disciples of Jesus and 30 pupils for John the Baptist, so just the numbers, which were used in the Egyptian calendar.
There's a direct reference of the 30 pupils to the moon and the month: one is a woman, and a woman is only half a man, so there are actually 29.5 pupils, which relates to 29.53... days, which the moon needs from full state to full state (that's an argument in the text). This points more to a comparison to the moon calendar (354 days). The name of the woman is "Helena". Simon Magus ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Magus
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/ ... imon-magus
... is one of the pupils (according the story), but not he (he's just in Egypt to learn magic), but another, Dositheos got the leadership for the group. Simon first showed, as if he agreed with this solution, but intrigued successfully against Dositheos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dositheos_%28Samaritan%29
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5293-dositheus
There's a real Dositheos between the gnostic sects ... The Clementina Dositheos died a few days later. Helena became the lover of Simon, who formed a sort of all-mother out of her and connected her to Helena of Troja.
Petrus had a dispute with Simon for 3 days, after which Simon escaped.

The story of the text is told in an autobiographical manner. The speaker shall be Clement, the first pope of Rome after Petrus (according the text), installed by Petrus himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_I

Petrus has detailed ideas about Syzygys (pairs of opposition), a concept, which is often used in gnostic texts. So Jesus and John are a "syzygy", and also Petrus and Simon.

Both Dositheus and Simo are said to be from Samaria. Jews and Samaritans had strong differences from old times. The Jewish prophets had a lot of arguments against them.

English version:
https://books.google.de/books?id=dWbZBQ ... &q&f=false

My own German version might have differences. In my version the author met Barnabas in Rome, in another version he seems to have met him in Alexandria. A basic part of the story is, that Clement had lost mother, two brothers and his father. Finally he finds them all with the help of Petrus splitted at different locations in unlucky conditions.
Huck
http://trionfi.com