Valentinus

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This article is about the Gnostic Valentinus. For the martyr of the same (in Latin) name, see Saint Valentine

Valentinus (ca. 100–ca. 160) was the best known and, for a time, most successful theologian in early Christian Gnosticism. In his Alexandrian and Roman academy, he professed a deeply nuanced, neo-Platonic take on gnostic theology, stressing the ultimately monistic nature of the cosmos. Christologically, Valentinus followed the Docetist heresy, suggesting that Jesus's mortal body was simply an illusory emanation of the Ultimate Reality. His views, while consistent with many other Christian Gnostics (as represented in the Nag Hammadi Corpora), were soon anathematized and declared to be heretical. The first (and most detailed) of these denunciations still extant can be found in Irenaeus's Adversus Haereses.

Tertullian, in his critical biography of the heretic, suggests that Valentinus had been a candidate for the bishopric of Rome (ca. 143), but that he was passed over in favor of a more orthodox preacher. Apparently, this adverse event was sufficient to cause the gnostic to break with the Church and develop his highly unconventional theology.

Biography

Valentinus was born in Phrebonis in the Nile delta and educated in Alexandria, an important and metropolitan early Christian center. There he may have encountered the Christian philosopher Basilides and certainly became conversant with Hellenistic Middle Platonic philosophy and the culture of Hellenized Jews, like the great Alexandrian Jewish allegorist and philosopher Philo Judaeus. Demonstrating their Christian pedigree, his Alexandrian followers said that Valentinus was a follower of Theudas, who was himself a disciple of St. Paul of Tarsus. Valentinus said that Theudas imparted to him the secret wisdom that Paul had taught privately to his inner circle, which Paul publicly referred to in connection with his visionary encounter with the risen Christ (Romans 16:25; 1 Corinthians 2:7; 2 Corinthians 12:2-4; Acts 9:9-10). Such esoteric teachings were becoming downplayed in Rome after the mid-2nd century.

Valentinus taught first in Alexandria and went to Rome about 136, during the pontificate of Pope Hyginus, and remained until the pontificate of Pope Anicetus. According to a later tradition, he withdrew to Cyprus, where he continued to teach and draw adherents. He died circa 160 C.E.

While Valentinus was alive, he earned many disciples, with his system becoming the most widely diffused of all the forms of Gnosticism. However, it developed into several different versions, not all of which acknowledged their dependence on him, as noted by Tertullian ("they affect to disavow their name"). Among the more prominent disciples of Valentinus were Bardasanes, invariably linked to Valentinus in later references, as well as Heracleon, Ptolemy and Marcus. Many of the writings of these Gnostics, and a large number of excerpts from the writings of Valentinus, existed only in quotes displayed by their orthodox detractors, until 1945, when the cache of writings at Nag Hammadi revealed a Coptic version of the Gospel of Truth, which is the title of a text that, according to Irenaeus, was the same as the Gospel of Valentinus mentioned by Tertullian in his Adversus Valentinianos.

Later (Polemical) Additions

The Christian heresiologists also contributed details on the life of Valentinus, which are rendered dubious due to their obviously polemical motives. As mentioned above, Tertullian claimed that Valentinus was a candidate for bishop, after which he turned to heresy in a fit of pique. Epiphanius wrote that Valentinus gave up the true faith after he had suffered a shipwreck in Cyprus and became insane. In addition to seeming improbable (at least the second), these descriptions are also conflicting.

Valentinus was among the early Christians who attempted to align Christianity with Platonism, drawing dualist conceptions from the Platonic world of ideal forms (pleroma) and the lower world of phenomena (kenoma). Of the mid-2nd century thinkers and preachers who were declared heretical by Irenaeus and later mainstream Christians, only Marcion is as outstanding as a personality. The contemporary orthodox counter to Valentinus was Justin Martyr.

In Adversus Valentinianos, iv, Tertullian says:

Valentinus had expected to become a bishop, because he was an able man both in genius and eloquence. Being indignant, however, that another obtained the dignity by reason of a claim which confessorship had given him, he broke with the church of the true faith. Just like those (restless) spirits which, when roused by ambition, are usually inflamed with the desire of revenge, he applied himself with all his might to exterminate the truth; and finding the clue of a certain old opinion, he marked out a path for himself with the subtlety of a serpent.

In a text known as Pseudo-Anthimus, Valentinus is quoted as teaching that God is three hypostases (hidden spiritual realities) and three prosopa (persons) called the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit:

Now with the heresy of the Ariomaniacs, which has corrupted the Church of God...These then teach three hypostases, just as Valentinus the heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him 'On the Three Natures'. For he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is discovered to have filched this from Hermes and Plato. (Source: AHB Logan. Marcellus of Ancyra (Pseudo-Anthimus), 'On the Holy Church': Text, Translation and Commentary. Verses 8-9. Journal of Theological Studies, NS, Volume 51, Pt. 1, April 2000, p.95 ).

Since Valentinus had used the term hypostases, his name came up in the Arian disputes in the fourth century. Marcellus of Ancyra, who was a staunch opponent of Arianism but also denounced the belief in God existing in three hypostases as heretical (and was later condemned for his views), attacked his opponents (On the Holy Church, 9) by linking them to Valentinus:

"Valentinus, the leader of a sect, was the first to devise the notion of three subsistent entities (hypostases), in a work that he entitled On the Three Natures. For, he devised the notion of three subsistent entities and three persons — father, son, and holy spirit." [2]

Valentinus' detractors

Shortly after Valentinus' death, Irenaeus began his massive work Adversus Haereses with a resoundingly polemical of the gnostic and his teachings. Such sentiments are echoed in Tertullian's Adversus Valentinianos, though this text seems to primarily contain retranslated passages from Irenaeus without the addition of original material. Later, Epiphanius of Salamis also discussed and dismissed him (Haer., XXXI). As with all the non-traditional early Christian writers, Valentinus has been known largely through quotations in the works of his detractors, though an Alexandrian follower also preserved some fragmentary sections as extended quotes.

The Gospel of Truth

In this situation, a new field in Valentinian studies opened when the Nag Hammadi library was discovered in Egypt in 1945. Among the multifarious works branded as "gnostic" was a series of writings which could very well be associated with him, particularly the Coptic text called the Gospel of Truth which bears the same title reported by Irenaeus as belonging to a text by Valentinus (Adversus Haereses 3.11.9). It is a declaration of the unknown name of the Father, possession of which enables the knower to penetrate the veil of ignorance that has separated all created beings from the Father. And Jesus Christ as Savior has revealed that name through a variety of modes laden with a language of abstract elements.

Theological system

Valentinus professed to have derived his ideas from Theodas or Theudas, a disciple of St. Paul, and freely drew inspiration from some books of the New Testament. Unlike a great number of other 'Gnostic' systems, which were expressly dualistic, Valentinus's theology was profoundly (perhaps even ultimately) monistic. As Pagels notes, "Valentinian gnosticism [...] differs essentially from dualism." This conclusion is echoed by Shoedel, who notes that "a standard element in the interpretation of Valentinianism and similar forms of Gnosticism is the recognition that they are fundamentally monistic."

Valentinus described the Primal Being or Bythos as the beginning of all things who, after ages of silence and contemplation, gave rise to other beings by a process of emanation. The first series of beings, the aeons, were thirty in number, representing fifteen syzygies ("sexually complementary pairs"). Through the error of Sophia, one of the lowest aeons) and the ignorance of Sakla, the lower world with its subjection to matter is brought into existence. Man, the highest being in the lower world, participates in both the psychic and the hylic (material) nature, and the work of redemption consists in freeing the higher, the spiritual, from its servitude to the lower. This was the word and mission of Christ and the Holy Spirit. In this Christology, Jesus the Son of Mary is irrelevant in his corporeal form, only becoming notable once he becomes a being of pure spirit.

The Valentinians

"Valentinians" is the name for the school of Gnostic philosophy tracing back to Valentinus. It was one of the major gnostic movements, having widespread following throughout the Roman world and provoking voluminous writings by Catholic heresiologists. Notable Valentinians included Heracleon, Ptolemy, Florinus, and Axionicus.

References

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This article incorporates text from the public-domain Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913.

• Healy, Patrick J. "Valentinus and Valentinians" in the Catholic Encyclopedia. 1912.
• Hoeller, Stephan A. "Valentinus - A Gnostic for All Seasons." Gnosis: A Journal of Western Inner Traditions Volume 1 (Fall-Winter 1985-86).
• Lampe, Peter. From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the first two centuries. Translated by translated by Michael Steinhauser. Edited by Marshall D. Johnson. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003. ISBN 0800627024.
• Legge, Francis. Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, From 330 B.C.E. to 330 C.E. (1914). New York: University Books, 1964 (reprint).
• Pagels, Elaine. The Gnostic Gospels. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. ISBN 0679724532.
• Schoedel, William. "Gnostic Monism and the Gospel of Truth" in The Rediscovery of Gnosticism. Volume I: The School of Valentinus. Edited by Bentley Layton. Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1980. ISBN 9004061762.

External Links

All links retrieved September 23, 2007

• Valentinus and the Valentinian Tradition - an extremely comprehensive collection of material on Valentinian mythology, theology and tradition (from the Gnosis Archive website).
• Patristic Material on Valentinus Complete collection of patristic sources mentioning Valentinus, including the works of Tertullian. Use the index search function to search the texts for specific references (again at the Gnosis Archive website).
• Early Christian Writings: Valentinus, introductions and e-texts

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