Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume III/Anti-Marcion/Against the Valentinians/XXXI

by Tertullian

Chapter XXXI.—At the Last Day Great Changes Take Place Amongst the Æons as Well as Among Men. How Achamoth and the Demiurge are Affected Then. Irony on the Subject.

It remains that we say something about the end of the world,^[1] and the dispensing of reward. As soon as Achamoth has completed the full harvest of her seed, and has then proceeded to gather it into her garner, or, after it has been taken to the mill and ground to flour, has hidden it in the kneading-trough with yeast until the whole be leavened, then shall the end speedily come.^[2] Then, to begin with, Achamoth herself removes from the middle region,^[3] from the second stage to the highest, since she is restored to the Pleroma: she is immediately received by that paragon of perfection^[4] Soter, as her spouse of course, and they two afterwards consummate^[5] new nuptials. This must be the spouse of the Scripture,^[6] the Pleroma of espousals (for you might suppose that the Julian laws^[7] were interposing, since there are these migrations from place to place). In like manner, the Demiurge, too, will then change the scene of his abode from the celestial Hebdomad^[8] to the higher regions, to his mother’s now vacant saloon^[9]—by this time knowing her, without however seeing her. (A happy coincidence!) For if he had caught a glance of her, he would have preferred never to have known her.

Footnotes

1. De consummatione.
2. Urgebit.
3. See above, ch. xxiii. p. 514.
4. Compacticius ille.
5. Fient.
6. Query, the Holy Scriptures, or the writings of the Valentinians?
7. Very severe against adultery, and even against celibacy.
8. In ch. xx. this “scenam de Hebdomade cælesti” is called “cælorum septemplicem scenam” ="the sevenfold stage of heaven.”
9. Cœnaculum. See above, ch. vii. p. 506.