The Christ therefore descended through the seven heavens(632), taking upon him the likeness of their children, and drew out from them their virtue, so that all the supernal light with which they were imbued returned to him; and having arrived in this world united himself to Wisdom, his sister, and in union with her descended upon Jesus, who thenceforward begun to work miracles. Upon this Jaldabaoth and his posterity united to kill him; whereupon the Christ and Wisdom left him, and returned to the upper sphere; not however deserting him altogether; for the Christ sent down upon him a power by which he rose again, clothed with a spiritual body(633). But after this, although he remained on earth eighteen months, he wrought no miracle, (as neither did he before his baptism,) being forsaken by the Christ and Wisdom. Yet he was in a certain degree inspired, and taught these things to a few of his disciples(634). At the end of eighteen months he was taken up into heaven, where the Christ placed him(635) on the right hand of his father Jaldabaoth, though without his knowledge, where his business is to receive the souls of those who know these doctrines, viz. those who are imbued with the heavenly light. By this means Jaldabaoth will by degrees lose the whole of that which he originally possessed, and be left entirely earthly and material; whilst the whole of the light will be withdrawn from the world and its creators; and then will be the consummation of all things (636). Section VI. Valentinus. But none of the Gnostic leaders, excepting perhaps Marcion, obtained so high a pre‐eminence as VALENTINUS, who drew out a kind of eclectic system, and thus became the founder of a new school: at least Irenæus represents the matter so completely in this light, that he classes all the others together by the general name of Gnostics(637), in contradistinction to Valentinus and his school. Report(638) makes him an Ægyptian by birth, and Tertullian expressly informs us(639) that he was originally a Christian; and indeed a person of such eminence in the Church that he aspired to the office of Bishop. But his mind was tinged with the Platonism(640) which was so prevalent in Alexandria, the place of his education: and it did not happen to him as to Justin and Clement, in whom the truth moulded their philosophical notions, and clad them in a Christian garb; for being disappointed in the object of his ambition, he showed how wisely the Church had acted in rejecting him, by giving himself thenceforth, like Arius, to the propagation of error. As he could not be a bishop, he would be a father of heresy.