Читать книгу A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Joseph Cullen Ayer - Страница 90

The teaching in the following passage attaches itself to the text, “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom” (cf. Prov. 1:7). Compare with it Irenæus, Adv. Hær., I, 30:6.

Here the followers of Basilides, interpreting this expression [Prov. 1:7] say that “the Archon, having heard the speech of the Spirit, who was being ministered to, was struck with amazement both with the voice and the vision, having had glad tidings beyond his hopes announced to him; and that his amazement was called fear, which became the origin of wisdom, which distinguishes classes, and discriminates, and perfects, and restores. For not the world alone, but also the election, He that is over all has set apart and sent forth.”

And Valentinus appears also in an epistle to have adopted such views. For he writes in these very words: “And as terror fell on the angels at this creature, because he uttered things greater than proceeds from his formation, by reason [pg 092] of the being in him who had invisibly communicated a germ of the supernal essence, and who spoke with free utterance; so, also, among the tribes of men in the world the works of men became terrors to those who made them—as, for example, images and statues. And the hands of all fashion things to bear the image of God; for Adam, formed into the name of man, inspired the dread attaching to the pre-existing man, as having his being in him; and they were terror-stricken and speedily marred the work.”