VALERIAN
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VALESIO
traiisitoriness. He constitutes man out of psychical •■mil liylical elements, but, lie is not aware that the psy- chical has imi)lanted in it. pneuniatical germs which the Sophia designs for further development. Such de- velopment, receives a decisive impulse tlirough Ihe in- tervention of the Redeemer, whose oflice it is to spread guostical light wherever any degree of receptivity exists. The Demiurge had promised his people, the Jews, a Messiah, and in due lime causes him to be born (a psychical iMessiah) from Mary, through whom he passes like water ihnuigh a channel. Tlie Messiah receives piieumatical endowments from the Sophia, but has in himself no liylical elements which are not capa- ble of being saved. His psychical body is, however, so marvellously constructed that it may be seen and touched, and that it may sutt'er. At this point the Yalentinians divided into two schools — the one of which included Heracleon and Ptolemy, and is known as the ItciliotiCj which held to the psychical body and seemeil to make the pneumatical endowment dependent on the Messiah's baptism ; while the Anatolic school, to which Axionicns and Ardesianes belonged, held to a pneumatical body formed by the descent of the Spirit (i. e. the Sophia) upon Mary and the co-operation of the Demiurge. The passion and crucifixion of our Lord likewise receive a symbolical inter|)retation, though the heavenly Soter is not usually allowed to participate in them. The saving process consists in the exaltation of the pneumatical element in man, and the end of all things is the separation of the pneumatical and the jisychical from the liylical. Achamoth is tliereby fully released from her pain, and she returns with the Soter, who becomes her husband, and with all perfect pneu- matical natures who have been married to the angels of the Soter, into the Pleroma to the eternal marriage feast. The Demiurge, with all righteous psychical natures, is lifted up to the intermediate place near to, but not in, the Pleroma, and afterwards the concealed fires break forth and consiune matter and themselves.
The influence of Platonic ideas is unmistakable in the structure of this sj-stem. Compare, e. g., the Kivw- fia or vryripijfia with Plato's conception of matter as the /iij ov. The Ktvtxjf^ia is conceived of as the ne- gation of existence or being, and thus serves to show the monistic character of the system, though all gnosis involves the dualistic principle of connecting with the process of the absolute, as related to the process of the world, a negation of itself, an element of tiniteness, and of effecting the necessary reconciliation only through the development of the world-process.
See Irenteus, particularly bk. i and ii; Hippolytus, Adv. fl(er.\i, 21 sq. ; Tertulliaii, Adr. Valeniin.; Clem. Alex. Strom., and other works, /»''.<.si/rt ; Origen, especial- ly inJoanrusxiii; Epiphanius, Hot. xxxi.xxxii, xxxv; Theodoret, Hmr. Fiib. i, 7 ; see also Buddieus, in Appen- dix to Introd. ad Hist. Philos. Ebr. ; Massuet, Hi Irenceiis, diss, i; Rossel, Theol. Schrifteu (Herl. 1847), p. 280 sq.; Mciller, Gesch. d. Kosinolnr/if ; Meth. Quar. Rev. 188(3, p. 5G7sq.; aniiHeTzog,Iieal-Eiict/Uop.s.v. See Gnos- ticism.
Valerian (fully Publius Licinius Vai.erianus"), Roman emperor from A.D. 253 to 259, was at first friend- ly towards Christians, but in 257 began a violent perse- cution of them, which continued to the enil of his reign. Its oljject was chiefly to destroy the leaders of the Church, especially the bishops. They were at first forbidden to convoke religious gatherings under pain of imprison- ment and similar puni.shmeiits; afterwards were sen- tenced, together with their lay adherents, to the mines; and, finally, were coiidemne(l to execution, in com]iany with all priests and deacons, while all such senators, knights, etc., as would not renoimce the Christian relig- ion were threatened with confiscation of property and loss of life. The most noted victims of this persecution were Sixtus I of Rome and Cyprian of Carthage. In the year 259 Valerian attempted an invasion of the Per- sian kingdom, but was taken prisoner by the Sassanide
king Sapor, and held in captivity until he died, ten years later. His son and successor, (Jallienus, issued an edict of toleration in 260, which inaugurated a period of forty years of comparative peace and rest; for Cliris- tianity. See Cyprian, /,/>/). 82, 8.^; iMiseliius, J/ist. Ecd. vii, 10, 11 ; Neander, Cliurch Hist, ad loc. ; Smith, ///(•/. of Of. and Rom. Biug. s. \. ; Herzog, Real-Eiicy- klop. s. V.
Coin of Valeriuu.
Valerian, St.. was a bisliop of Cemele, in the Mari- time Alps, now in the archbishopric of Embrun. He belonged to the 5th century. He attended a synod at Riez ill 439, signed the address of the (iallican bisliops to Leo I in 451 (see Leonis M. 0pp. i, 998, 1110 s(i.),and took sides witii the monastery of Leriiis, in 454, in its dispute with the bishops of the neighborhood. The year of his death is not known. He left twenty-nine Sermones, or Homilies, and an Ejiistola ad Moii<irho.i, wliicii were published by Sirmond (Par. 1612) and Ray- nauld (Liigd. 1633). Raynauld's edition is given al.so in Migne, I'aliolof/. (Par. 1845), lii. Galland iuriiished an additional edition of Valerian, together witli a /V- t?-us Chrysolofjus, in the Bibl. Max. I'atr. (1774), c. 10. See Cave, Sci-ipt. Ecd. IJist. Lit. i, 427 ; Herzog, Real- EncyJdop. s. v.
Valeriani, Domenico and GirsErric, two Italian painters, brothers, who flourished at Rome about 1730. They were pupils of jNIarco Ricci, and were jointly em- ployed in decorating churches and other public build- ings.