And 'All things were made by Him,' because in 'the Word' was the entire essence of all the subsequent worlds (Aeons), to which he assigned forms[460].

From which it is plain that, according to Valentinus, 'the Word' was distinct from 'the Son'; who was not the world's Creator.

Both alike, however, he acknowledged to be 'God[461]': but only, as we have seen already, using the term in an inferior sense.
Heracleon, commenting on St.John i.

3, insists that 'all things' can but signify this perishable world and the things that are therein: not essences of a loftier nature.

Accordingly, after the words 'and without Him was not anything made,' he ventures to interpolate this clause,--'of the things that are in the world and in the creation[462].' True, that the Evangelist had declared with unmistakable emphasis, 'and without Him was not anything' (literally, 'was not even one thing') 'made that was made.' But instead of 'not even one thing,' the Valentinian Gnostics appear to have written 'nothing[463]'; and the concluding clause 'that was made,' because he found it simply unmanageable, Valentinus boldly severed from its context, making it the beginning of a fresh sentence.
With the Gnostics, ver.