THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
stood the bewildering maze, and sought to lead the pagans, confused by countless religious teachings, to God by a simpler and safer way through the person of Christ. The authorities to whom they appealed were the words of Jesus and his apostles. Marcus asserted the possession of prophetic gifts and of special inward illumination by the higher Wisdom revealing the supernal mysteries, but both pagans and early Christians did the same. An impartial verdict is impdssible from merely the hostile orthodox writings; but, at all events, these Gnostics sought only to be Christian teachers, preachers, and prophets. The Church, however, judged differently, and it was soon forgotten that the Gnostices had assisted to render the reception of Christianity possible in the cultured world. Its dualism threatened to substitute ditheism for monotheism; and its obliteration of all history, which became but a type and symbol, a mere casual factor in the eternal, spiritual drama of emanation and redemption, endangered the firm foundations of the Christian faith. The battle of the Church against Gnosticism was justified, yet the movement proved to involve propitious germs that later unfolded in the Church. How far Valentinus furnished a prototype for the organization of the Church is not fully disclosed by the dearth of information, but the distinction of pneumatics and psychics reechoed far in a dual ecclesiastical ethics. The most pronounced influence of his school was through scientific and edifying literature, such as apocryphal gospels and apostolic adventure in romantic form for the man of average culture, odes for the more educated, sermons for edification, exegetic and systematic treatises for the theologian, an array with which the Church at the time had nothing in comparison. To what degree ecclesiastical literature that first deserved the name of scientific was influenced by Valentinus and his school is best seen in Clement of Alexandria and Origen (qq.v.). Not only did Clement’s polemics purely or impurely absorb of the character whom he attacked, but he borrowed of him illustrations, analogies, and courses of thought for his own occasions. The commentaries of Origen were doubtless composed in part to replace Gnostic exegesis (cf. John), and even his sermons may have been more or less inspired by antipathy to the ‘ soul-destroying’’ homilies of the Valentinians. Even the hymn of Clement may not have been uninfluenced by Valentinian poesy. Thus the Church reshaped the weapons of its enemies to defeat them; but the memory of the Valentinians was retained so long, that after the last remnants had long vanished, they still formed the subject of legislation (Codex Theodosianus, X., v. 65, § 2). (ERwin PREUSCHEN.)
Brstiograpuy: Consult the literature under Gnosticism, particularly the works of Matter, Neander, Baur, Mansel, Hilgenfeld, King, and Anz; also: G. Heinrici, Die valentinische Gnosis und die heilige Schrift, Breslau, 1871 (best); DCB, iv. 1076-99 (indispensable); W. Méller, Geschichte der Kosmologie in der griechischen Kirche, pp. 407-442, Halle, 1860; K. Kessler, Ueber Gnosis und altbabylonische Religion, in the Verhandlungen of the 5th International Congress of Orientalists, ii. 1, pp. 288-305, Berlin, 1882; T. Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, i. 718— 763, ii, 953-961, Leipsic, 1888-89; A. Hilgenfeld, in ZWT, 1880, pp. 280-300, 1883, pp. 355-384, 1890, 1-63;
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Valentinus Valerian
A. E. Brooke, in 7S, i. 4 (1891); GC. Schmidt, in .7'U, viii. 1 (1892); Harnack, Dogma, passim, consult Index; idem, Intteratur, i. 174-184, ii. 1, pp. 291-296; idem, in SBA, 1898, pp. 516-520; F. Torm, Valentinianismens Historie og Lere, Copenhagen, 1901; E. C. H. Peithmann, Die Valentinianer, 2 parts, Bitterfeld, 1903; HE. de Faye, Introduction a l étude du gnosticisme, pp. 81 sqq., Paris, 1903; E. H. Schmitt, Gnosis, Leipsic, 1903; Bardenhewer, Geschichte, pp. 331-337; idem, Patrologie, pp. 68-69, Eng. transl., St. Louis, 1908; P. Wendland, Die hellenistischrémische Kultur in thren Beziehungen zu Judentum und Christentum, pp. 161 sqq., Tubingen, 1907; C. Barth, Die Interpretation des Neuen Testaments in der valentinianischen Gnosis, in TU, xxxvii. 3 (1911); Ceillier, Auteurs sacrés, i. 497 sqq., ii. 540, iv. 171,510; Schaff, Christian Church, ii. 472-482; Neander, Christian Church, i. 417-434 et passim; and, in general, works on the church history of the time.
VALERIAN, va-li’ri-an, PUBLIUS LICINIUS: Roman emperor 253-260. Valerian came of distinguished family, and was trained in both military and civil functions. He came to the purple during the bloody times which closed the usurpation of Aimilian, being made emperor in Rhetia by the army in 253. He attempted to meet the difficult situation at home and the warlike conditions on the borders, but his age (sixty years) did not permit the employment of the necessary energy. The result was insecurity and hesitation in the face of foreign influences.
[Valerian had been nominated censor by Decius, who wished to revive this important office in the empire, and the choice was ratified by the Roman senate. But Valerian declined a position which carried with it really imperial power on the ground that the functions belonged to the emperor (Gibbon, Decline and Fall, i. 247-248).] In the matter of Christianity Valerian had occupied such a position under Decius that Christian tradition rightly saw in him the instigator of the Decian persecution (see Dectus, Carus Messrus Quintus Trasants). But he broke away from that policy and gave to Christians unwonted signs of favor; at his court Christians were so numerous that the court seemed like “a church of God ”’ (Dionysius, in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., VII., x. 3; NPNF, 2 ser., 1.298). This situation resembles that in the reign of Diocletian, and the development was similar; in both cases an antichristian party gained the ear of the emperor. The antichristian leader was the General Marcus Fulvius Macrianus, a man of great military reputation, and a leader in the Egyptian mysteries, which explains his attitude. His political reasons are in doubt; he may have aimed at the purple, and perhaps attempted to carry out his plans by causing political unrest. At any rate, he induced the emperor to issue’a rescript in 257 which forbade the Christians to hold assemblies and to use the cemeteries, also sending the clergy into banishment. Macrianus was evidently aiming at the Christian organization; the heads— the clergy—were to be removed while the rank and file were not to meet. How the emperor was won over by the heathen party is not known; but the terms of the edict, comparatively mild, reveals the emperor’s earlier good-will for the Christians.
In 258 a new rescript was issued: bishops, presbyters, and deacons were at once to be executed; Christians of senatorial or equestrian rank were to be degraded and their property confiscated, and, if still contumacious, were to suffer death; women
were threatened with confiscation of property and banishment; the Christians of the court were to be put in chains at forced servitude on the imperial domains. As a result the two great Christian communities at Rome and Carthage lost their leaders. Bishop Sixtus of Rome fled to the catacombs, but was captured and executed (see Srxrus II.); and Cyprian also lost his life the same year. Rome also suffered loss in the death of Saint Laurence (q.v.). The Spanish church lost Bishop Fructuosus of Tarragona (q.v.), and both his deacons. In the part of the empire under Gallienus the persecution spread and was thought of as general. As a matter of fact, persecution broke out only in limited foci of action, and there did not destroy Christianity; for a united and general persecution there was neither time nor strength. Perhaps Valerian did not stand forcefully behind the rescript. Yet none of the persecutions of the Christians has raised so many unanswered questions as this.
Valerian fell into the hands of the Persian king, by whom he was held a prisoner till his death. The two sons of Macrianus attempted to seize the throne, but he and they soon fell. Gallienus caused the persecutions to cease. (Victor ScHULTZE.) BipiiocRAPHy: Sources are: Eusebius, Hist. eccl., WVII.,
x.-xi., Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., i. 298-302; and the
Acta proconsularia, in Cyprian, Opera, ed. Hartel, ii. 839,
in CSEL. Consult: L. S. Le Nain de Tillemont, Hist.
des empereurs, vol. iii., 6 vols., Paris, 1720-38; H. Schiller, Geschichte der rémischen Kaiserzett, i. 2, pp. 811 saq.,
Gotha, 1883; W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Biography and Mythology, iii. 1216-17, London, 1890;
P. J. Healy, The Valerian Persecution, ib. 1905; Gibbon,
Decline and Fall, chaps. x., xvi.; Schaff, Christian Church,
ii. 62; Neander, Christian Church, i. 136-140 et passim;
DCB, iv. 1100-02; the literature under Cyprian; Srx-
Tus II.; and PERsECUTIONS OF CHRISTIANS.
VALERIAN, SAINT: Bishop of Cemelium (near the modern Nice), southeastern Gaul, and homilist; d. about 460. He seems to have been a kinsman of Eucherius of Lyons, but the only details known of his episcopate are that he attended the Councils of Riez (439) and Vaison (452), protested with eighteen other Gallic bishops against Leo the Great in behalf of the primacy of Arles (see ARLES, ARCHBISHOPRIC OF), and opposed the claims of Theodore of Fréjus. He was, therefore, an adherent of Hilary of Arles and of Faustus. Valerian is chiefly important, however, for his homilies. Up to 1612 the only one known was the De bono discipline, formerly ascribed to Augustine, but proved to be Valerian’s by Melchior Goldast, who edited the homily (Geneva, 1601). In aCorbey manuscript J. Sirmond found nineteen other homilies which he ascribed to Valerian (Sancti Valeriani episcopt Cemeliensis homilie viginti; item epistola ad monachos, de virtutibus et ordine doctrine apostolice, Paris, 1612). These homilies are adorned with all the artifices of the Gallic school of rhetoric, including alliteration; the author is at his best in descriptions, and his style is modeled on that of Seneca. The homilies are also important historically as supplementing Salvianus (q.v.). In theology Valerian avoids dogmatic controversy, and in his doctrine of grace he follows Faustus of Riez (q.v.), his point of view scarcely differing from that of Cesarius of Arles (q.v.). He is primarily a moralist, his chief thought being the advancement of discipline, of
Valesius Valtellina