Did Valentinianism Spring From Philo?

[Secret Alias]

I know this is a tentative theory but I've increasingly noticed that Valentinianism as strange as it might sound might actually have some roots in Hebrew gematria. For instance the number 888. Jews and Samaritans took an interest in this number. For instance the Great Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32:3 is of great interest to Marqe and the Samaritan version of the verse has a value of 888. Marqe that the Greek version of the other Song of Moses begins with the words 'then sang' which have a value of 888. When Irenaeus attacks the Valentinians for improperly preserving the name of the Lord it is their insistence that the Greek name Jesus has a value of 888 that Irenaeus attacks. Irenaeus doesn't like much the Greek name Jesus for that reason.

I am working through what Philo says about creation and he seems to infer that 'mind' (νοῦς) was created in Genesis 2:5.

By "the green herb of the field," he (Moses) means to say the mind

χλωρὸν μὲν οὖν ἀγροῦ τὸ νοητὸν εἴρηκε τοῦ νοῦ (1 Allegorical 23)

The one doing the creating is the Logos. Is there a precedent for Logos creating Nous?

[nightshadetwine]

The one doing the creating is the Logos. Is there a precedent for Logos creating Nous?

I think Philo would consider Nous to be the mind/thoughts/ideas of the Logos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo#View_of_God

Philo probably was the first philosopher who identified Plato’s Ideas with Creator’s thoughts. These thoughts make the contents of Logos; they were the seals for making sensual things during world creation.[30] Logos resembles a book with creature paradigms.[31] An Architect’s design before the construction of a city serves to Philo as another simile of Logos.[32] Since creation, Logos binds things together.[33] As the receptacle and holder of ideas, Logos is distinct from the material world.

Plotinus considered the Logos and Nous as the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plotinus#Major_ideas

The first emanation is Nous (Divine Mind, Logos, Order, Thought, Reason), identified metaphorically with the Demiurge in Plato's Timaeus.

[Secret Alias]

Here's how Philo interprets Genesis 2:5. The Logos creates 'mind' and 'sensation' just before man.

"On which day God created the heaven and the earth, and every green herb of the field, before it appeared upon the earth, and all the grass of the field before it sprang up. For God did not rain upon the earth, and man did not exist to cultivate the earth." This day Moses has previously called a book, since at least he describes the generation of both heaven and earth in each place. For by his most conspicuous and brilliant word, by one command, God makes both things: the idea of mind, which, speaking symbolically, he calls heaven, and the idea of sensation, which by a sign (διὰ σημείου) he named earth (22) And he likens the idea of mind (ἰδέαν τοῦ νοῦ), and the idea of sensation (ἰδέαν τῆς αἰσθήσεως) to two fields; for the mind brings forth fruit, which consists in having intellectual perception (ὁ μὲν νοῦς καρπὸν τὰ ἐν τῷ νοεῖν); and sensation brings forth other fruits which consist in perceiving by the agency of the external senses (δὲ αἴσθησις τὰ ἐν τῷ αἰσθάνεσθαι). And what he says has the following meaning; --as there was a previously existing idea of the particular mind, and also of the indivisible minds to serve as an archetype and model for either; and also a pre-existent idea of particular sensation, being, so to say, a sort of seal which gave impressions of forms, so before particular things perceptible only by the intellect had any existence, there was a pre-existent abstract idea of what was perceptible only by intellect, by participation in which the other things also received their names; and before particular objects perceptible by the external senses, existed, there was also a generic something perceptible by the external senses, in accordance with a participation in which, the other things perceptible by the external senses were created. (23) By "the green herb of the field," Moses means that portion of the mind which is perceptible only by intellect. For as in the field green things spring up and flourish, so also that which is perceptible only by the intellect is the fruit of the mind. Therefore, before the particular something perceptible only by intellect existed, God created the general something perceptible only by intellect, which also he correctly denominated the universe. For since the particular something perceptible only by intellect is incomplete, that is not the universe; but that which is generic is the universe, as being complete.

[Secret Alias]

I have a hard time understanding Philo' s interpretation of Genesis 2:5. The original text says that until Adam was created neither "shrub" nor "herb" was created. Philo clearly understands the former to be Mind and the latter Sense as well as heaven and earth respectively. But how can this make sense when Heaven and Earth were already formed in chapter 1?

[Secret Alias]

I think reading Runia has made sense of this. νοῦς is Adam and αἴσθησις is Eve. The original Hebrew term in Genesis 2:5 which Philo equates with νοῦς is שיח. Interestingly aside from meaning "growth" שיח also means talk, thought, mediate c.f. Amos 4:13. What about the other term?

[Secret Alias]

What I am intrigued by of course is that the term שיח appears just once in the Pentateuch. At Genesis 2:5 and aside from meaning growth or shoot it necessarily also means something like νοῦς. Of course it literally spells out the number 318 which we know resurfaces later when Abraham has his war with the 5 kings. So Philo identifies this שיח - or it's LXX equivalent χλωρὸν ἀγροῦ - as νοῦς. But the text says that שיח hadn't yet sprung up on the earth. The appearance of שיח coincides with the manufacture of Adam. Interestingly the term is translated 'fir tree' in the LXX at Genesis 21:5 which - given the pairing with esab in Genesis 2:5 might identify it as the tree of life.

[Secret Alias]

So where things are going - if you believe Philo - is that the שיח and עשב of Genesis 2:5 later become 'the tree of life' and the 'tree of knowledge.' How do we know he believed this? Well let's start with שיח being νοῦς. We've already seen that שיח has the sense of thought or thinking. But there is also this in the Third Book of Allegorical Interpretation:

"In the middle," says Moses, "of the trees of the Garden;" that is to say, in the middle of the mind (νοῦς), which again is itself the centre of the whole soul, as the trees are of the garden.

But the tree of life is that most general virtue which some people call goodness; from which the particular virtues are derived, and of which they are composed. And it is on this account that it is placed in the centre of the Paradise; having the most comprehensive place of all, in order that, like a king, it may be guarded by the trees on each side of it. But some say that it is the heart that is meant by the tree of life; since that is the cause of life, and since that has its position in the middle of the body, as being, according to them, the dominant part of the body. But these men ought to be made aware that they are expounding a doctrine which has more reference to medical than to natural science. But we, as has been said before, affirm that by the tree of life is meant the most general virtue. (60) And of this tree Moses expressly says, that it is placed in the middle of the paradise; but as to the other tree, that namely of the knowledge of good and evil, he has not specified whether it is within or outside of the Paradise

The Hebrew word for 'heart' is translated by the Greek in Exodus 7:23 and elsewhere:

Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart (לִבּ֖וֹ/τὸν νοῦν αὐτοῦ).

So clearly the tradition he is citing is a Hebrew tradition. It might have something to do with Prov. 13.12, "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life." So to this end Philo's tradition identifies 'the tree of life' with 'mind' - cf. Questions and Answers in Genesis 1:10 "But worthy and excellent men say that the tree of life is the best of the virtues in man, namely piety through which pre-eminently the mind becomes immortal."