PLEROMA (πλήρωμα). — A technical term in the Gnosticism of Valentinus and his followers (MARCUS, Ptolemy, Pistis Sophia, etc.). The word, which was also used outside Gnosticism (e.g., Rom 11:25, 15:29; Col 1:19, 2:9, etc.), signifies in Gnosticism the totality of the intellectual world in God. Everything that comes from the dialectic of divine thought (συγγένεια) is a complete product, whereas what comes from a single entity is not p., but an image (v. CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, Stromata, IV, 13; Excerpta ex Theodoto, 32, 1). According to Excerpta ex Theodoto, 33, Christ withdrew into the p. (systellien) when he left the thought of the Mother. This Gnostic speculation may perhaps be of Jewish origin, since the doctrine of the production of pairs in the divine mind, as shown by the speculation of the Pseudo-Clementine writings, is based on the opposition of ter-
PLEROMA — PLINY THE ELDER
biblical terms, but also the doctrine of contraction (tsimtsum) following the expansion of the divine fēkhīnāh was known in Jewish mysticism.