THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
VALENTINUS AND HIS SCHOOL.
I. Valentinus. Life and Works (§ 1). Doctrines (§ 2).
Il. The Valentinians.
I. Valentinus: The events of the life of Valentinus, the most important of the Gnostic teachers, are little known. According to an ancient document
cited by Ireneus and preserved by 1. Life and Eusebius (Hist. eccl., IV., xi. 1), he Works. came to Rome during the pontificate of Hyginus; developed his chief activity under Pius; and remained at Rome until the pontificate of Anicetus, thus placing his sojourn at Rome about 136-165. Tertullian (Adversus Valentinos, iv.; ef. De prescriptione, xxx.) makes him the victim of disappointed ambition for the throne of St. Peter, a martyrius (confessor) being preferred to him. The only predecessor of Anicetus who was a confessor was Telesphorus, but during his pontificate Valentinus was not at Rome, and Tertullian’s statement remains of little value. Clement of Alexandria (Strom., VII., xvii. 106-107) essentially accords with Irenzus, placing the activity of Basilides (q.v.), Valentinus, and Marcion (q.v.) in the period of 120-160. Epiphanius (Hist. eccl., xxxi.) adds that he had heard that the home of Valentinus was in the Phrebonite coastland of Egypt; and that he had been educated in Alexandria, whence he had gone to Rome to disseminate his teachings. Thence he had gone to Cyprus, where he had lapsed from the faith. The last part of this statement is contradicted by the more probable report of Tertullian and Irenzeus that this took place already at Rome. Statements of the opponents of Valentinus imply that he wrote only occasional treatises. The only work evidently dogmatic as shown by its title was “‘ On the Three Natures,” a fragment of which may be that preserved by Photius (Bibliotheca, cexxx.). All the other known writings of Valentinus were of a practical character; sermons, hymns, and letters. Fragments of the sermons are preserved by Clement of Alexandria (see below), who has also transmitted fragments of three letters (see below). Tertullian ranked his psalms with those of David (De carne Christi, xvii., xx.), a few of which are cited by Hippolytus (Philosophumena, V1., xxxvii. 290). Perhaps the newly recovered Odes of Solomon (see SoLomon, ODEs oF) are Valentinian.
The teachings of Valentinus are known only as represented by his opponents where they are scarcely distinguished from those of his pupils. Evidently his doctrines sprang from the soil of Hellenistic syncretism, and their ultimate basis was Platonic dualism, which separated the divine world of ideas from the material world of phenomena. In the intermediate abyss stands man partaking of both and the problem is how to bridge the chasm so as to attain the higher goal and be released from the material. The cosmos is the imperfect image of the eon, the ideal prototype, and the creator of the cosmos is the demiurge, who is termed God and Father, and is an image of the true God. According
2. Doctrines.
According to Irenzus (§ 1).
According to Hippolytus (§ 2).
Secundus; Ptolemy (§ 3).
The Fall and Redemption According to Ptolemy (§ 4).
Heracleon (§ 5).
Marcus (§ 6).
Colorbasus (§ 7).
‘Sources and Estimation (§ 8).
to a citation from a reputed sermon (Clement of Alexandria, Strom., IV., xiii., Eng. transl., ANF, li. 425-426) Valentinus held that Wisdom was the “ artist’ who ordered matter, but it is more probable that the artist who sought to imitate the lineaments of the face of God, and covered the defects of his work with the name, was really the demiurge. It is not improbable that Clement made this citation from a writing elaborated by the Valentinians, as shown by internal resemblance, possibly a commentary on Gen. i. 27, where the extract from Valentinus’ sermon also appeared. Valentinus in the fragment of his sermon simply represents that the world is a picture of the invisible God, though imperfect. Yet, the mere picture bears the name of the invisible God, reflecting honor, and inducing faith in mankind. In a fragment of one of the letters of Valentinus (Strom., II., viii. 36), he says that as idols, though made by human hands, are objects of awe to man because divinity is believed to dwell within them, so created man is feared by the angels as containing the seed of the higher nature implanted in him by the creator and divinely proclaimed to exist there. The angels accordingly fear man as the dwelling-place of the preexistent ‘“man”’ (God); and to escape their terror, they corrupt the work of the Creator by seducing it to sin. Here again Clement seems to have drawn from a Valentinian interpretation of Prov. i. 7, containing a citation from the letter of Valentinus. Doubtless this Valentinian interpretation or writing is one with the other mentioned above, which cited from the sermon of Valentinus. In another fragment of a sermon of Valentinus (Strom., IV., xiii. 89), man is represented from the first a child of immortality, taking death upon him that he might destroy death so that it should no more have power over him, but that, himself being undestroyed, he might rule over creation and all that is transitory. The origin of sin and evil in man is set forth in the longest of the fragments (Strom., II., xx. 114), in which he compares the human heart with an inn, wherein disorderly guests break holes in the walls, and they defile it with offal, because it is not their property; so the demons (the passions) invade the heart until the ‘‘ good Father’’ drives them out, and the heart is sanctified and gleams with light. A fragment of a letter to Agathopus (Strom., III., vi. 59) is concerned with Jesus, who lived ascetically, and wholly consumed his food without corruption within his body, apparently thus gaining his divinity. A brief fragment of a homily ‘‘ On Friends ”’ (Strom., VI., vi. 52), important for a knowledge of Valentinus’ theory of the Church, alludes apparently to a spiritual community, not to an external organization. Valentinus, according to Hippolytus (Philosophumena, vi. 42), ascribed the source of his teachings to a vision in which he saw a new-born child, who, in answer to his question, declared him-
| self to be the Logos, and whose “ tragic narrative ”’
formed the fountain of his doctrine. From these fragments no coherent presentation of the system of Valentinus can be constructed, and they are rendered the more difficult since they have been set in a new context and overladen with the exegesis of the later Valentinian school; nor is it even known whether they are especially characteristic of the heresiarch’s teachings.
II. The Valentinians: The description of Valentinianism as given by Ireneus (Her., I., xi. 1; Eng. transl., ANF, i. 332) can scarcely represent the teachings of its founder, corresponding in no points with his authenticated statements. Accordng to this, the system was a genealogy of eons. At
the head was a dyad, “‘ the Ineffable ” 1. According and “ Silence,’ from whom emanated to Irenzus. a second dyad, ‘‘ the Father” and
“ Truth.” From this tetrad proceeded “ Logos”’ and “ Life,’ and, again, ‘‘ Man” and “Church.” These four pairs form the first octad. Ten ‘‘ powers’? emanate from the Logos and “Life,” and twelve from ‘‘ Man” and ‘‘ Church.” This mysticism is clearly a play on the number thirty, the number of the days in the Egyptian month. One of the twelve emanations fell and separated, and from her proceeded the further work of creation. She separated by a first boundary the abyss, or highest ground of the universe, where dwells the unbegotten Father, from the pleroma, where are the begotten eons. A second boundary separates the ‘‘ Mother ”’ from the pleroma. Christ was no emanation of the eons, but was born of the mother, remembering the pleroma, by a shadow, but since he was male, he cast the shadow from him and returned to the pleroma. ‘‘ Mother,” deprived of her spiritual potency, remained with the shadow, and now brought forth “‘ Demiurge,” or the ‘“ Almighty,” and with him “ Left-Hand Archon.” Jesus is regarded sometimes as an emanation of Thelétos, he “‘ who was separated from their mother and united to the rest” (ef. ANF, i. 332); sometimes of Christ; and sometimes of the syzygy, ‘““Man’”’ and ‘ Church.” The Holy Ghost is an emanation of ‘‘ Truth” (Epiphanius reads “Church ’”’), and his work is the proving and fertilizing of the eons whom he enters unperceived, so that they bring forth fruits of truth. This description is closely paralleled by one found in a letter of unknown origin, reported by HEpiphanius (Her., xxxi. 5-6).
Far different is the account of Valentinianism given by Hippolytus (Philosophumena, vi. 29 sqq.), who repeatedly alludes to the doctrinal divergencies of individual teachers of the school. At the head he
places the “ monad,” or “ father,”
2. According non-sexual, inconceivable, the ultito Hip- mate cause of all being. Originally polytus. self-sufficient and alone, but not loving solitude, and having the power of
generation, this ‘‘ monad ” was led to create an object of affection. Thus emanated “ Mind” and “Truth,” a dyad which became the source of the eons in the pleroma. From this dyad emanated “‘ Logos ”’ and “‘ Life,” and from these ‘‘ Man ” and “ Church.” ‘‘ Mind” and ‘ Truth” produced the perfect number ten, in ten cons; and in imitation