PLEROMA (πλήρωμα). - A technical term of the gnosis of Valentino and his adherents (Marco, Tolomeo, Pistis Sophia, etc.). The word, which was also in use outside gnosis (e.g., Rom. 11, 25, 15, 29; Col. 1, 19, 2, 9, etc.), signifies in gnosis the totality of the intellectual world in God. Everything that proceeds from the dialectic of divine thought (syzygiae) is a complete product, whereas what proceeds from a single being is not p., but an image (v. Clem. Aless., Strom., IV, 13; Excerpta ex Theodoto, 32, 1). Christ, according to Exc. ex Theod., 33, 3, withdrew into the p. (systellein) when he emerged from the thought of the mother. This speculation of gnosis is perhaps of Jewish origin, because the doctrine of the production of pairs in the divine mind, as the speculation of the pseudo-Clementine writings shows, is based on the opposition of biblical terms; but the doctrine of contraction (tsimtsum) after the expansion of the šēkhīnah was also known in Jewish mysticism.
