Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Religion
Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
She is indeed
prevented from this by the Horos; but the breach in the Pleroma
has been made. In order to restore the harmony that has thus been
broken, the Monogenes begets with Aletheia a new æon pair, the
Ἄνω Χριστός and the Πνεῦμα ἅγιον which emancipates the Sophia
from her disorderly, passionate nature (Ἐνθύμησις), cuts out this
latter from the Pleroma, but unites again the purified Sophia
with her husband, and teaches all the æons about the Father’s
unapproachable and incomprehensible essence, and about the reason
and end of the Syzygies. Then they all, amid hymns of praise
and thanksgiving, present an offering to the Father, each one of
the best that he has, and form thereof an indescribably glorious
æon-being, the Ἄνω Σωτήρ, and for his service myriads of august
angels, who bow in worship before him.--The basis for the
origination of the =sensible world=, the Ὑστέρημα, consist of
the Enthymesis ejected from the Pleroma into the desert, void
and substanceless Kenoma, which is by it for the first time
filled and vitalized. It is an ἔκτρωμα, an abortion, which however
retains still the æon nature of its divine present, and as such
bears the name of Ἔξω (κάτω) Σοφία or Ἀχαμώθ (הַחָכְמוֹת). Hence even
the blessed spirits of the Pleroma can never forsake her. They
all suffer with the unfortunate, until she who had sprung from
the Pleroma is restored to it purified and matured. Hence they
espouse her, the Ektroma of the last and least of the æons, to
the Ano-Soter, the noblest, most glorious and most perfect being
in the æon-heaven, as her redeemer and future husband. He begins
by comforting the despondent and casting out from her the baser
affections. Among the worst, fear, sorrow, doubt, etc., is found
the basis of the hylic stage of existence; among the better,
repentance, desire, hope, etc., that of the psychic stage of
existence (φύσεις). Over the beings issuing forth from the former
presides Satan; over the psychical forms of being, as their
highest development, presides the Demiurge, who prepares as
his dwelling-place the seven lower heavens, the Hebdomas.
But Achamoth had retired with the pneumatic substratum still
remaining in her into the Τόπος τῆς μεσότητος, between the
Pleroma and the lower world, whence she, inspired by the
Ano-Soter, operates upon the Demiurge, who, knowing nothing of
her existence, has no anticipation thereof. From the dust of the
earth and pneumatic seed, which unobserved she conveys into it,
he formed man, breathed into him his own psychical breath of
life, and set him in paradise, that is, in the third of his seven
heavens, but banished him to earth, when he disobeyed his command,
and instead of his first ethereal garment clothed him in a
material body. When men had spread upon the earth, they developed
these different natures: _Pneumatical_, which free from the
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