Pleroma (Koine Greek: πλήρωμα, literally "fullness") generally refers to the totality of divine powers. It is used in Christian theological contexts, as well as in Gnosticism. The term also appears in the Epistle to the Colossians, which is traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle. The word is used 17 times in the New Testament. In Valentinianism it represents as virtualities of the Son
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👉 Pleroma in the context of Leviathan
Leviathan (/lɪˈvaɪ.əθən/ le-VIE-ə-thən; Hebrew: לִוְיָתָן, romanized: Livyāṯān; Greek: Λεβιάθαν) is a sea serpent demon noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in the Hebrew Bible, as a metaphor for a powerful enemy, notably Babylon. It is referred to in Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, and the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch. Leviathan is often an embodiment of chaos, threatening to eat the damned when their lives are over. In the end, it is annihilated. Christian theologians identified Leviathan with the demon of the deadly sin envy. According to Ophite Diagrams, Leviathan encapsulates the space of the material world.
In Gnosis, it encompasses the world like a sphere and incorporates the souls of those who are too attached to material things, so they cannot reach the realm of God's fullness beyond, from which all good emanates. In Hobbes, Leviathan becomes a metaphor for the omnipotence of the state, which maintains itself by educating children in its favour, generation after generation. This idea of eternal power that 'feeds' on its constantly self-produced citizens is based on a concept of conditioning that imprints the human's conscience in a mechanical manner. It deals in a good and evil dualism: a speculative natural law according to which man should behave towards man like a ravenous wolf, and the pedagogically transmitted laws of the state as Leviathan, whose justification for existence is seen in containing such frightening conditions.
In this Dossier
Pleroma in the context of Aeon (Gnosticism)
In many Gnostic belief systems, there exist various emanations of God, who is known by such names as One, Monad, Aion teleos (αἰών τέλεος "The Broadest Aeon"), Bythos (βυθός, "depth" or "profundity"), Arkhe (ἀρχή, "the beginning"). In Gnosticism these emanations of God are named as Proarkhe (προαρχή, "before the beginning") and as Aeons (which are also often named and may be paired or grouped). In different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described (but emanation is common to all forms of 'Gnosticism'). In Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (υἱότητες huiotetes; sing.: υἱότης huiotes); according to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called syzygies (συζυγίαι, from σύζυγοι syzygoi: lit. "yokings together").
This source of all being is an Aeon, in which an inner being dwells, known as Ennoea (ἔννοια, "thought, intent"), Charis (χάρις, "grace") or Sige (σιγή, "silence"). The split perfect being conceives the second Aeon, Nous (Νους, "mind"), within itself. Complex hierarchies of Aeons are thus produced, sometimes to the number of thirty. These Aeons belong to a purely ideal, noumenal, intelligible, or supersensible world; they are immaterial, they are hypostatic ideas. Together with the source from which they emanate, they form Pleroma (πλήρωμα, "fullness"). The lowest regions of Pleroma are closest to darkness; that is, the physical world.
Pleroma in the context of Valentinus (Gnostic)
Valentinus (Greek: Οὐαλεντῖνος; c. 100 – c. 180 CE) was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome. According to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but started his own group when another was chosen.
Valentinus produced a variety of writings, but only fragments survive, largely those quoted in rebuttal arguments in the works of his opponents, not enough to reconstruct his system except in broad outline. His doctrine is known only in the developed and modified form given to it by his disciples, the Valentinians. He taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature received the gnosis (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine Pleroma, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser or uncertain form of salvation, and that those of a material nature were doomed to perish.