it was 4.45am when I wrote the last posting; but blogger refused to upload it till days later;
Also I finally received a comment that Leo posted weeks ago about the minkie whales; it arrived yesterday (assuming that this post gets published today, which is Sunday Oct 8th).
I have been revisiting research that I did 25 years ago, in the days before the internet. Where then I could only read ancient texts quoted in secondary sourcesI find I can now read the originals (mostly at the wonderful
Sacred-texts.com.
While reading the accounts that the second century bishop Irenaeus left about the varioous heretical texts then 'spreading like locusts to devour the gospels' , I came across this section. Poor Iraneus has just waded through yet another list of invented names for the succession of 'primordial' existences which the heretics say generated the world; finally he throws up his hands in despair and produces this Monty Python sketch: read it please; it's not often you get to laugh out loud at a 2nd century bishop's jokes:
4. Iu, Iu! Pheu, Pheu!—for well may we utter these tragic exclamations at such a pitch of audacity in the coining of names as he (ie Velentinus, and his followers) has displayed without a blush, in devising a nomenclature for his system of falsehood. For when he declares: There is a certain Proarche before all things, surpassing all thought, whom I call Monotes; and again, with this Monotes there co-exists a power which I also call Henotes,—it is most manifest that he confesses the things which have been said to be his own invention, and that he himself has given names to his scheme of things, which had never been previously suggested by any other. It is manifest also, that he himself is the one who has had sufficient audacity to coin these names; so that, unless he had appeared in the world, the truth would still have been destitute of a name. But, in that case, nothing hinders any other, in dealing with the same subject, to affix names after such a fashion as the following: There is a certain Proarche, royal, surpassing all thought, a power existing before every other substance, and extended into space in every direction. But along with it there exists a power which I term a Gourd; and along with this Gourd there exists a power which again I term Utter-Emptiness. This Gourd and Emptiness, since they are one, produced (and yet did not simply produce, so as to be apart from themselves) a fruit, everywhere visible, eatable, and delicious, which fruit-language calls a Cucumber. Along with this Cucumber exists a power of the same essence, which again I call a Melon. These powers, the Gourd, Utter-Emptiness, the Cucumber, and the Melon, brought forth the remaining multitude of the delirious melons of Valentinus.
Irenaeus, 'Against Heresies', Vol 1, ch. XI
