These thirty Æons, consisting of twelve, and ten, and eight, composed what they called the Fulness(661): and Valentinus differed from his followers in placing a barrier between the First Cause and the others(662); which probably is to be explained by his saying that they were not, like him, real beings, but merely qualities or emanations. Irenæus was probably the first person who published their names: for the Valentinians prided themselves on their being a secret, hidden from all but the initiated. The names, however, were differently stated by later Valentinians(663), and were in all probability altered on set purpose whenever they became known. Of these thirty, the Only‐begotten or Father alone knew the nature of the Great Father of all: the rest desired to know their origin, but knew him not: and although the Only‐begotten was desirous of revealing him to them, Silence restrained him(664). A new state of things, however, arose from the restlessness of the last of the Æons, namely Wisdom; who, under the pretext of affection for the unknown First Parent, but in reality through venturesome curiosity, reached forth into the fathomless height and depth, in a state of extreme excitement and anxiety, and would have been reabsorbed into the original substance, but for the interposition of a power called the Barrier, which prevented her farther progress, and brought her back to herself; but at the same time kept up a perpetual separation between her and the Father, to which she originally belonged(665). Valentinus then taught that Wisdom, being thus separated from Theletos, became the mother of the Christ, producing him from the remembrance of the better things or superior beings she had left, but with a kind of shadow attached to him, derived from her fallen condition; and by that means emptied herself of her spiritual substance. Whereupon he, having become possessed of it, cut off from him the shadow, and returned aloft into the Fulness, leaving his mother under the shadow he rejected. In this still more degraded condition, Valentinus makes her to have produced a son, who became the Creator, and whom he regards as complete ruler of all things subordinate to him(666). His followers, however, improved, as they thought, upon this part of his scheme. They personified the longing of Wisdom, making it her offspring, comprising in it all the feelings of admiration and wonder, of sorrow, and fear, and perplexity, under which she had laboured(667). They represent the Barrier personally, as sent down at the intercession of the Word or Only‐begotten, and give him the appellations of the Stake or Cross, the Redeemer, the Limiter, the Reconciler(668). They affirm that by his agency Wisdom was freed from the consequences of her vain search after her original, and restored to her spouse and to the Fulness, whilst her longing was separated from the Fulness(669).