Valentinus

“ Valentinus, you always counsel wisely! How can I propitiate the god, assuring him of my continued loyal service?
Valentinus.
True service implies many things, Tertulla, among which not the least is gratitude! Under the favour of Heaven human hands were needed to protect the tender roots from the cruelties of winter, to water them in days of drought, and foster their growth! The miracle of the god could be wrought only by the devotion of a man!
Tertulla.
[After a slight pause.] If Pertinax is within hearing let him advance to receive my thanks! ”

“ But Valentinus is not disposed to affirm what is thus generated to be primal Deity, but speaks in detractive terms both of Him and the things made by Him. And (he asserts) that Christ came down from within the Pleroma for the salvation of the spirit who had erred. This spirit, (according to the Valentinians,) resides in our inner man; and they say that this inner man obtains salvation on account of this indwelling spirit. Valentinus, however, (to uphold the doctrine,) determines that the flesh is not saved, and styles it “a leathern tunic,” and the perishable portion of man. ”

“ It is significant that Valentinus himself is credited with having written a treatise upon the three natures (Schwartz, A porien, i. 292) . Here we have another instance of the theological compromise of the Valentinians. All the other Gnostic systems recognize only a dual division, the children of light and the children of darkness. That the Valentinians should have placed the psychici between the pneumatici and hylici signifies a certain recognition of the Christian Church and its adherents. ”

“ Upon his own data, therefore, that Valentinus may have taught for twenty years after his first appearance in Rome in a.d. 140—and there is no ground whatever for asserting that he did not teach for even a much longer period—Ptolemaeus and Heracleon might well have personally sat at the feet of Valentinus in their youth, as Irenseus is said to have done about the very same period at those of Polycarp, and yet, like him, have flourished chiefly towards the end of the century. ”

“ The central point of the piety of Valentinus seems to have been tha mystical contemplation of God; in a letter preserved in Clemens ii. 20, 114, he sets forth that the soul of man is like an inn, which is inhabited by many evil spirits. "But when the Father, who alone is good, looks down and around him, then the soul is hallowed and lies in full light, and so he who has such a heart as this is to be called happy, for he shall behold God." ”

“ II) devoted to Valentinus, his teaching is definitely connected with the so-called "falsely reputed Gnostics." It will be useful, in trying to ascertain the teaching and view of life of Valentinus, to keep closely before us that of the "Gnostics" in the narrower sense of the word, as preserved in the expositions of Irenaeus (i. 29, 30) and Epiphanius (passim) . The Gnostics were par excellence worshippers of the supreme Mother-goddess, the Mὴτηρ, in whom we have no difficulty in recognizing the characteristics of the goddess of heaven of anterior Asia. ”

“ Since Hyginus held office in all probability from 137–141, and Anicetus from 154 or 155 to 166 or 167, Valentinus must have been in Rome at least thirteen years. His chronological position between Basilides and Marcion (as given by Clement of Alexandria, Strom. VII. 17) makes it probable that he came to Rome early in Antoninus’ reign and remained there during all or the most of that reign, but not longer. Valentinus’ followers divided into two schools, an Oriental and an Italian, and constituted by far the most numerous and influential Gnostic sect. ”

“ Chapter IV.—The Heresy Traceable to Valentinus, an Able But Restless Man. Many Schismatical Leaders of the School Mentioned. Only One of Them Shows Respect to the Man Whose Name Designates the Entire School.
We know, I say, most fully their actual origin, and we are quite aware why we call them Valentinians, although they affect to disavow their name. They have departed, it is true, [1] from their founder, yet is their origin by no means destroyed; and even if it chance to be changed, the very change bears testimony to the fact. ”

“ These are they whom the Christian tradition speaks of as the Elect, and for whom, as we have seen, there is reserved after death a glorious ascension and an immediate return to the Paradise of Light. So Valentinus, like many other Gnostics, divided Christians into the two classes of pneumatics and psychics, the first-named of whom were to occupy a more distinguished position in the world to come than the other. ”

“ Valentinus, however, was as yet nowhere, and still the Valentinians derive their name from Valentinus. Axionicus at Antioch is the only man who at the present time does honour [5] to the memory of Valentinus, by keeping his rules [6] to the full. But this heresy is permitted to fashion itself into as many various shapes as a courtezan, who usually changes and adjusts her dress every day. ”

“ B. The School of Valentinus The Valentinians were the most important of all the Gnostics closely connected with the Church. The school had many adherents scattered throughout the Roman Empire, its leading teachers were men of culture and literary ability, and the sect maintained itself a long time. Valentinus himself was a native of Egypt, and probably educated at Alexandria, where he may have come under the influence of Basilides. He taught his own system chiefly at Rome c. ”

“ Peculiarly Valentinian is the above-mentioned derivation of the material world from the passions of Sophia. Whether this already formed part of the original system of Valentinus is, indeed, questionable, but at any rate it plays a prominent part in the Valentinian school, and consequently appears with the most diverse variations in the account given by Irenaeus. By it is effected the comparative monism of the Valentinian system. The dualism of the conception of two separate worlds of light and darkness is over-come by the derivation of the material world from the passions of Sophia . ”

“ The Gnostic Christianity of Valentinus, direct descendant as it was of the amalgam of Christianity with pre-Christian faiths which the Ophites had compounded, no sooner reached the great mass of the Egyptian people than it found itself under their influence. In this later Gnostic literature we hear no more of the Supreme Father of Valentinus, “who alone” 198in his words, “is good”; no more weight is laid upon the Faith, Hope, and Love who were the first three members of his Heavenly Man ”

“ But if, in truth, vacuity was produced, then its producer Valentinus is also a vacuum, as are likewise his followers. If, again, it was not produced, but was generated by itself, then that which is really a vacuum is similar to, and the brother of, and of the same honour with, that Father who has been proclaimed by Valentinus; while it is more ancient, and dating its existence from a period greatly anterior, and more exalted in honour than the remaining Æons of Ptolemy himself, and Heracleon, and all the rest [14] who hold the same opinions. ”

“ And Valentinus has elucidated this (arrangement) very succinctly, in a psalm commencing from below, not as Plato does, from above, expressing himself thus: “I behold [7] all things suspended in air by spirit, and I perceive all things wafted by spirit; the flesh (I see) suspended from soul, but the soul shining out from air, and air depending from Æther, and fruits produced from Bythus, and the fœtus borne from the womb.” ”

“ Between the essence of God, dwelling in the midst of isolation prior to an exercise of the creative energy, and the material worlds, Valentinus interposes an ideal world. Through the latter, the soul—of a kindred nature—is enabled to mount up to God. ”

“ It is impossible to fix the date of his death. The St Valentinus who is spoken of as the apostle of Rhaetia, and venerated in Passau as its first bishop, flourished in the 5th century. Although the name of St Valentine is very popular in England, apparently no church has been dedicated to him. ”

“ But whatever Valentinus’ own views with regard to the Supreme Being may have been, he could no more escape than did Philo or any other Platonist from the difficulty of explaining 101the connection of this Perfect God with imperfect matter [355] , and this had to be the work in his system of an intermediate Power. This Power was that Nous or Monogenes whom we have seen was the first and unique being produced from the Unknowable Father, to whom he seems to have stood in much the same relation as the Dionysos of the Orphics did to the supreme Zeus [356] . ”

“ There is at all events no serious chronological difficulty in supposing that the Valentinian system was the starting-point from which Basilides proceeded to construct by contrast his own theory, and this is the view which a comparison of doctrines suggests. In no point, unless it be the retention of the widely spread term archon, is Basilides nearer than Valentinus to the older Gnosticism, while several leading Gnostic forms or ideas which he discards or even repudiates are held fast by Valentinus. ”

“ In the preface to the first book, having stated that he writes after personal intercourse with some of the disciples of Valentinus, (3) he more definitely declares his purpose: "We will, then, to the best of our ability, clearly and concisely set forth the opinions of those who are now [———] teaching heresy, I speak particularly of the disciples of Ptolemæus [———] whose system is an offshoot from the school of Valentinus." ”

“ So Cruice. Miller’s text has Ἀρδησιάνης.
[150] ἡ δημιουργικὴ τέχνη, “the process of fashioning.”
[151] διώρθωτο. So that Valentinus was the first to advance the theory which we find later among the Manichæans that this earth of ours, instead of being the centre of the universe, was in fact the lowest and most insignificant of all the worlds, and that salvation only came to it after the greater universe had been reformed—an extraordinary conception on the part of one who must have held, like his contemporaries, geocentric views in astronomy. ”

“ I would first ask, If there be two, why not more? Because if number be compatible with the substance of Deity, the richer you make it in number the better. Valentinus was more consistent and more liberal ”

“ The same conclusion applied to the hylics who were doomed to annihilation in any case, and whose struggles towards righteousness were bound to be inefficacious. There remained the psychics or animal men, for whom indeed a certain course of life was prescribed before they could attain salvation. But with the excessive freedom of interpretation and the licence of variation that Valentinus apparently allowed his followers, the exact limits of this course must always have been a matter of doubt; and it was here that many corruptions and debasements of his teaching began to show themselves. ”

“ But [Valentinus] will not have it that the flesh will be saved, calling it a “coat of skin” and a corrupter of mankind. I have described this in epitome, as one meets with much matter [concerning it] and differing opinions among them. This then is what Valentinus’ school thinks. [30]
6. Basilides.
14. But Basilides also says that there is a God-Who-Is-Not who, being non-existent [made] the created world out p. 491. of the things that are not. ”

“ According to it, the world-creating angels—not one, but many—create man, but the seed of the spirit comes into their creature without their knowledge, by the agency of a higher celestial aeon, and they are then terrified by the faculty of speech by which their creature rises above them, and try to destroy him . In the Valentinian system known to us this myth has practically lost its original freshness and colour, and can only be arrived at from allusions. ”

“ Valentinus may have found this doctrine in Egypt, where as Maspero points out (Ét. Égyptol. I. p. 398) only the rich and noble were thought to enjoy the life beyond the grave.
390. Valentinus’ remark about the Cosmocrator being superior in knowledge to the Demiurge because he is a spirit (see n. 1, p. 108 supra) much complicates the problem, and brings us pretty near to the Dualism of the Avesta. That all matter was in Valentinus’ opinion transitory appears from Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 1, § 13, where it is said that when all the seed scattered by Sophia in the world, i.e. ”

“ At the centre of the whole Valentinian system naturally stands the idea of redemption, and so we find here developed particularly clearly the myth of the heavenly marriage already known from Irenaeus i. 30 to be Gnostic. Redemption is essentially accomplished through the union of the heavenly Soter with the fallen goddess. There is great uncertainty in the Valentinian system as to who this celestial Soter is. In the Gnostic systems of Irenaeus i. 30 he is the Christos, the celestial brother who turns back to the fallen sister. ”

“ A wave of pity swept across Valentinian's compassionate heart, and he sat down to write a hopeful, encouraging letter to Rufinus. When he had finished it, a sentence from a letter written to the Roman and other Churches, when persecution had scattered the members of the first Christian Church at Jerusalem, flashed through his mind: "If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful, what doth it profit?" ”