Colarbasus, along with Marcus, another disciple of Valentinus, was said to maintain the whole plenitude, and perfection of truth and religion, to be contained in the Greek alphabet; and that it was for this reason that Jesus was called the Alpha and Omega.
This Marcus then, declaring that he alone was the matrix and receptacle of the Sige of Colorbasus, inasmuch as he was only-begotten, has brought to the birth in some such way as follows that which was committed to him of the defective Enthymesis.Marcus, Irenaeus seems to say, boasted that he alone was allowed to become the womb and receptacle of the Sigé (Silence) of Colarbasus; the offspring to which he gave birth being the statement and revelation recorded afterwards.
Eleven pages back he refers briefly to "a certain other Illustrious teacher of theirs" [the Valentinians]; but there is no coincidence of doctrine, and nothing to suggest that the nameless, or obscurely named [Epiphanes], heretic was himself Colarbasus, as some have supposed.
43) Colarbasus taught after Marcus and "in like manner:" his two lines of description are merely a vague echo of Marcosian doctrine.
The long account of Marcus in Irenaeus is preceded by a series of short notices (mostly without names) of the chief doctrines maintained by different branches of the great Valentinian sect.
Volkmar explains the appearance of s by the Aramaic commutation of ע with צ, and the o of several authorities by Theodoret's Kossianos for Kassianos: Colassae and Colossae afford a still better illustration.
Thus (66–69):— That the Tetrad herself came down to him from the highest and from the invisible [and innominable] places in female form, because, it is said, the world could not bear her male [element], and that she made known who she was ... And that the Tetractys, when she had explained this to him, said 'And I will also show thee' ... And as Marcus waited expecting her [Aletheia or Truth, another aeon] to say something more, the Tetractys again came forward and spoke ...Sigé on the other hand, is mentioned only when Irenaeus speaks in his own person, and always with a touch of sarcasm.
Speaking of "Truth," virtually the alphabet, also called Man, he says (69) that she "is the fountain of every speech, and the beginning of every voice, and the utterance of everything unutterable, and the mouth of the unspoken Sigé (tês siôpômenês Sigês).
Again we hear (64) that Marcosians were taught to offer a prayer for deliverance from "the Judge" to a female divinity addressed as "thou that sittest beside God and the mystic Sigé before the aeons" (or ages: ô paredre theou k. t. l.).
This address supplies the required clue, for the divinity is called "the Mother," in a passage almost immediately preceding the occurrence of the name Colarbasus; and elsewhere (75: cf.
Sigé herself then doubtless remains hidden above; but her mysteries are made known to Marcus by the Tetrad, the Colarbas or Voice of Four, who must be the (nameless) "most mighty power from the invisible and innominable places," to whom he boasted that he owed his "knowledge," as we read in Irenaeus's first paragraph about him (60).
The difficulty would be lightened, and the perplexing termination of Kolarbasou at the same time removed, by reading tês Kolarbas ek Sigês, "the Colarba (Voice of Four) proceeding out of Sigé (Silence)."
The obscurity evidently lies in the original text of Irenaeus, if not of the authority whom he followed; and it was found as embarrassing in the 3rd and 4th centuries as now.