They [the Valentinians] say that in the invisible and ineffable heights above there exists a certain perfect, pre-existent Eon, and him they call Proarche, Propator, and Bythos; and that he is invisible and that nothing is able to comprehend him. Since he is comprehended by no one, and is invisible, eternal, and unbegotten, he was in silence and profound quiescence in the boundless ages. There existed along with him Ennœa, whom they call Charis and Sige. And at a certain time this Bythos determined to send forth from himself the beginnings of all things, and just as seed he wished to send forth this emanation, and he deposited it in the womb of her who was with him, even of Sige. She then received this seed, and becoming pregnant, generated Nous, who was both similar and equal to him who had sent him forth(47) and alone comprehended his father’s greatness. This Nous they also call Monogenes and Father and the Beginning of all Things. Along with him was also sent forth Aletheia; and these four constituted the first and first-begotten Pythagorean Tetrad, which also they denominate the root of all things. For there are first Bythos and Sige, and then Nous and Aletheia. And Monogenes, when he perceived for what purpose he had been sent forth, also himself sent forth Logos and Zoe, being the father of all those who are to come after him, and the beginning and fashioning of the entire pleroma. From Logos and Zoe were sent forth, by a conjunction, Anthropos and Ecclesia, and thus were formed the first-begotten Ogdoad, the root and substance of all things, called among them by four names; namely, Bythos, Nous, Logos, and Anthropos. For each of these is at once masculine and feminine, as follows: Propator was united by a conjunction with his Ennœa, then Monogenes (_i.e._, Nous) with Aletheia, Logos with Zoe, Anthropos with Ecclesia. (_g_) Ptolemæus, _Epistula ad Floram_, ap. Epiphanius, _Panarion, Hær._ XXXIII, 3. Ed. Oehler, 1859. (MSG, 41:557.) Ptolemæus was possibly the most important disciple of Valentinus. and the one to whom Irenæus is most indebted for his first-hand knowledge of the teaching of the sect of the Valentinians. Of his writings have been preserved, in addition to numerous brief fragments, a connected passage of some length, apparently from a commentary on the Prologue or the Gospel of St. John (see Irenæus, _Adv. Hær._, I, 8:5), and the Epistle to Flora. The commentary is distinctly a part of the esoteric teaching, the epistle is as clearly exoteric.