Chapter
XXXIII.—These Remaining Chapters an Appendix to the Main Work. In
This Chapter Tertullian Notices a Difference Among Sundry Followers of
Ptolemy, a Disciple of Valentinus.
I shall now at last produce, by way of
finale, after so long a
story, those points which, not to interrupt the course of it, and by
the interruption distract the reader’s attention, I have
preferred reserving to this place. They have been variously advanced by
those who have improved on the doctrines of
Ptolemy. For there have been in his school “disciples above their
master,” who have attributed to their Bythus two
wives—Cogitatio (Thought) and Voluntas (Will). For
Cogitatio alone was not sufficient wherewith to produce any offspring, although from the two wives procreation was most easy to him. The former bore him Monogenes (Only-Begotten) and Veritas (Truth). Veritas was a female after the likeness of Cogitatio; Monogenes a male bearing a resemblance to Voluntas. For it is the strength of Voluntas which procures the masculine nature, inasmuch as she affords efficiency to Cogitatio.