Valentinus (Gnostic)

Valentinus (/vælənˈtaɪnəs/; c. AD 100 – c. 180) was the best known and, for a time, most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian.^[1] He founded his school in Rome. According to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for bishop but started his own group when another was chosen.^[2]

Valentinus produced a variety of writings, of which for the most part only fragments quoted by his opponents survive. However, it has recently been argued that Valentinus's lost letter to Agathapous, quoted by Clement of Alexandria, is in fact Letter 366 of Pseudo-Basil.^[3] Some have also argued that the Gospel of Truth, a work preserved in the Nag Hammadi library, is also from the pen of Valentinus. Otherwise, his doctrine is known only in the developed and modified form given to it by his disciples, the Valentinians.^[1]^[4]

Valentinus taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature received the gnosis (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine Pleroma, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser or uncertain form of salvation, and that those of a material nature were doomed to perish.^[1]^[5]^[6]

Valentinus had a large following, the Valentinians.^[1]^[4] It later divided into an Eastern and a Western, or Italian, branch.^[1] The Marcosians belonged to the Western branch.^[1]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Cross, F. L.; Livingstone, E. A., eds. (2005). "Valentinus". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd, Revised ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1687–1688. ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3.
^ Adversus Valentinianos 4.
^ Porter, Nathan (2023). "A Newly Identified Letter of Valentinus on Jesus's Digestive System: Ps.-Basil of Caesarea's ep. 366". Vigiliae Christianae. (forthcoming).
^ ^a ^b Dunn, James D. G. (2016). ""The Apostle of the Heretics": Paul, Valentinus, and Marcion". In Porter, Stanley E.; Yoon, David (eds.). Paul and Gnosis. Pauline Studies. Vol. 9. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 105–118. doi:10.1163/9789004316690_008. ISBN 978-90-04-31668-3. LCCN 2016009435. S2CID 171394481.
^ The Tripartite Tractate, §14
^ Irenaeus, Adversus Haeresies i. 6

[Oxford-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Cross, F. L.; Livingstone, E. A., eds. (2005). "Valentinus". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd, Revised ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 1687–1688. ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3.

[2] Adversus Valentinianos 4.

[3] Porter, Nathan (2023). "A Newly Identified Letter of Valentinus on Jesus's Digestive System: Ps.-Basil of Caesarea's ep. 366". Vigiliae Christianae. (forthcoming).

[Dunn_2016-4] Dunn, James D. G. (2016). ""The Apostle of the Heretics": Paul, Valentinus, and Marcion". In Porter, Stanley E.; Yoon, David (eds.). Paul and Gnosis. Pauline Studies. Vol. 9. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 105–118. doi:10.1163/9789004316690_008. ISBN 978-90-04-31668-3. LCCN 2016009435. S2CID 171394481.

[5] The Tripartite Tractate, §14

[6] Irenaeus, Adversus Haeresies i. 6

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