It may be however proper to notice this radical difference between the heresiarch and his disciples, that he considered all these Æons, as they were called, or Eternal Essences, as merely feelings, affections, and motions of the one unseen, infinite First Cause, whereas they regarded them as so many personal beings(659).
The last mentioned tetrad then, knowing themselves to have been sent forth to the glory of the unbegotten Father, desired to glorify him by their own act. Wherefore the Word and the Truth sent forth ten Æons, called the Profound and Mixture, the Ever-youthful and Union, the Self-existent and Pleasure, the Immoveable and Commixture, the Only-begotten and the Blessed: whilst Man and the Church sent forth twelve, called the Paraclete and Faith, the Paternal and Hope, the Maternal and Charity, Aïnus (the Eternal Mind, or as it is in the Latin Æons, or Praise) and Comprehension, the Ecclesiastical and Blessedness, the Desired and Wisdom(660).
These thirty Æons, consisting of twelve, and ten, and eight, composed what they called the Fulness(661): and Valentinus differed from his followers in placing a barrier between the First Cause and the others(662); which probably is to be explained by his saying that they were not, like him, real beings, but merely qualities or emanations. Irenæus was probably the first person who published their names: for the Valentinians prided themselves on their being a secret, hidden from all but the initiated. The names, however, were differently stated by later Valentinians(663), and were in all probability altered on set purpose whenever they became known.
Of these thirty, the Only-begotten or Father alone knew the nature of the Great Father of all: the rest desired to know their origin, but knew him not: and although the Only-begotten was desirous of revealing him to them, Silence restrained him(664). A new state of things, however, arose from the restlessness of the last of the Æons, namely Wisdom; who, under the pretext of affection for the unknown First Parent, but in reality through venturesome curiosity, reached forth into the fathomless height and depth, in a state of extreme excitement and anxiety, and would have been reabsorbed into the original substance, but for the interposition of a power called the Barrier, which prevented her farther progress, and brought her back to herself; but at the same time kept up a perpetual separation between her and the Father, to which she originally belonged(665).