I have said that I should prove from the testimony of the Apostle Paul, that the Jews were not consistent in confounding angels properly so called with Gods. And this appears to me to be evident in the first place from the following passage in Hebrews ii. v. 3. πιστει νοουμεν κατηϱτισθαι τους αιωνας ϱηματι θεου, εις το μη εκ φαινομενων τα βλεπομενα γεγονεναι. This in the English version is erroneously rendered; “Through faith we understand, that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear.” I say this is erroneously translated, because in the first place, the worlds is evidently a forced interpretation of αιωνας; and even admitting it is not, leaves the passage very ambiguous, from the uncertainty to what worlds Paul alludes. If we adopt ages, which is the general sense of the word in the New Testament, we shall indeed avoid a forced and ambiguous interpretation, but we shall render the meaning of the Apostle trifling in the extreme. For as he has elsewhere said, “that all things were framed by the word of God,” what particular faith does it require to believe, that by the same word he framed the ages?
In the second place, from the definition of faith, given in the first verse of this chapter, that it is “the evidence of things not seen,” it is clear, that Paul is speaking in this passage of something invisible. Since then αιωνας is neither worlds nor ages, what shall we say it is? I answer, the æones of the Valentinians. And agreeably to this, the whole passage should be translated as follows: “By faith we understand, that the æones were framed by the word of God, in order that things which are seen, might be generated from such as do not appear (i. e. from things invisible).” Every one who is much conversant with Greek authors, must certainly be convinced that εις το means in order that; and Bishop Pearson translates as I have done the latter part of this verse.
Now we learn from the second book of Irenæus against the heretics, that according to the Valentinians, all created things are the images of the æones, resident in the pleroma, or fulness of deity. And does it not clearly follow from the above version, that according to Paul too, the æones are the exemplars of visible or created things? To which we may add, that this sense of the passage clearly accords with the assertion that “faith is the evidence of things not seen.” For here the things which do not appear are the æones; these, according to the Valentinians, subsisting in deity. So that from our version, Paul might say with great propriety, that “we understand by faith, that the æones were framed by the word of God, in order that things which are seen, might be generated from such as do not appear,” for this naturally follows from his definition of faith.
I farther add, that among these æones of the Valentinians were νους, βυθος, σιγη, αληθεια, σοφια,
