of the true God.  Jesus was seized and led to crucifixion, and the Aeon Christ now departed from Him; but, as His body was composed of the finest ethereal elements, and was, in fact, a phantom, He did not really suffer on the accursed tree.  Many of the Gnostics taught that there are two spheres of future enjoyment.  They held that, whilst the spiritual natures shall be restored to the Pleroma, the physical or animal natures shall be admitted to an inferior state of happiness; and that such souls as are found to be incapable of purification shall be consigned to perdition or annihilation.

Whilst, according to all the Gnostics, the Demiurge, or maker of this world, is far inferior to the Supreme Deity, these system-builders were by no means agreed as to his position and his functions.  Some of them regarded him as an Aeon of inferior intelligence who acted in obedience to the will of the Great God; others conceived that he was no other than the God of the Jews, who, in their estimation, was a Being of somewhat rugged and intractable character; whilst others contended that he was an Evil Power at open war with the righteous Sovereign of the universe.  The Gnostics also differed in their views respecting matter.  Those of them who were Egyptians, and who had been addicted to the study of the Platonic philosophy, held matter to be inert until impregnated with life; but the Syrians, who borrowed much from the Oriental theology, taught that it was eternally subject to a Lord, or Ruler, who had been perpetually at variance with the Great God of the Pleroma.

Two of the most distinguished Gnostic teachers who flourished in the early part of the second century were Saturninus of Antioch and Basilides of Alexandria. [433:1] Valentine, who appeared somewhat later, and who is supposed to have first excited attention at Rome about A.D. 140, was still more celebrated.  He taught that in the Pleroma there are fifteen male and fifteen female Aeons, whom he professed to distinguish by their names; and he even proceeded to point out how they are distributed into married pairs.  Some have supposed that certain deep philosophical truths were here concealed by him under the veil of allegory.  As he, like others of the same class, conveyed parts of his Gnosis only into the ears of the initiated, it may be that the explanation of its symbols was reserved for those who were thus made acquainted with its secret wisdom.  It has been alleged that he personified the attributes of God, and that the Aeons, whom he names and joins together, are simply those divine perfections which, when combined, are fitted to produce the most remarkable results.  Thus, he associated Profundity and Thought, Intelligence and Truth, Reason and Life. [433:2] His system seems to have had many attractions for his age, as his disciples, in considerable numbers, were soon to be found both in the East and in the West.