Valentinus
- founder of the Valentinians, the most celebrated
of the Gnostic sects (see Gnosticism) of the 2d
cent. The little that is known of his life is found
in the works of early Christian theologians who
refuted him, such as St. Irenaeus and Clement of
Alexandria. Probably born in Egypt, Valentinus received
his education in Alexandria and after c.135 taught
in Rome, where he attracted brilliant converts. --Valentinus,
The Columbia Encyclopedia(1)
It
is no exaggeration to say that Valentinus is the
greatest figure known to us from the heterodox sects
active in the early Christian period that were,
until recently, haphazardly lumped together as “Gnostic”.
Valentinus did not set out to form a competing movement
from the group that eventually would become the
orthodox Roman Church under Constantine. It was
only when the burgeoning Church rejected the allegorical
and cosmic understanding of the Savior advanced
by Valentinus (among others) in favor of the historicized
myth* we know as Orthodox Christianity that Valentinians
became a seperate Church. Bentley Layton says of
Valentinus: Valentinus
(A.D. ca. 100-ca. 175) was born in the Egyptian
Delta, at Phrenobis. He enjoyed the good fortune
of a Greek education in the nearby metropolis of
Alexandria, the world capital of Hellenistic culture.
In Alexandria he probably met the Christian philosopher
Basilides (see Part Five), who was teaching there,
and may have been influenced by him. There, too,
he must have made the acquiantance of Greek philosophy.
Valentinus's familiarity with Platonism may have
come to him through study of Hellenistic Jewish
interpretation of the bible, for in a passage of
one of his sermons he seems to show knowledge of
a work by the great Alexandrian Jewish allegorist
and philosopher Philo Judaeus
…Valentinus's distinguished career as a teacher
began in Alexandria, sometime between A.D. 117 and
138. Since most of the Fragments of his works (VFr)
were preserved by a second-century Christian intellectual
in Alexandria, Valentinus may have written and published
in Alexandria while he was teaching there. If so,
his considerable expertise in rhetorical composition,
which is evident in these Fragments, must have been
acquired while he was studying in Alexandria. Valentinus's
followers in Alexandria later reported that he had
claimed a kind of apostolic sanction for his teaching
by maintaining that he had received lessons in Christian
religion from a certain Theudas, who-he said- had
been a student of St. Paul. If there is any truth
in this claim, his contact with Theudas and his
reading of St. Paul may have occurred in Alexandria.
-- Bentley Layton ,The Gnostic Scriptures
Stephen Hoeller, in his essay Valentinus: A Gnostic
for All Seasons gives a concise definition of
the Gnostic, or at least Valentinian, view of the
Creation: The
often-debated cosmogony of Valentinus might be most
profitably understood as being based on a single
existential recognition, which might be summarized
thus: Something is wrong. Somewhere, somehow, the
fabric of being at the existential level of human
functioning has lost its integrity. We live in a
system which is lacking in essential integrity,
and thus is defective. So-called orthodox Christians
as well as Jews recognize that there is a certain
"wrongness" in human existence, but they
account for it chiefly in terms of the effects of
human sin, original or other. Jews and Christians
hold that whatever is wrong with the world and human
existence is the result of human disobedience to
the creator.(2)
This
seems to be the fundamental difference between the
Gnostic and Orthodox theologies, though it ought
to be remembered that the Gnostics, including the
Valentinians, valued individual interpretation over
doctrine, so that a (fairly broad) range of ideas
can be gathered under the name Gnostic. In The
Tree of Gnosis: Gnostic Mythology from Early
Christianity to Modern Nihilism author Ioan
P. Couliano notes that the mythological systems
devised by the Valentinians (and, for that matter,
Catholics) could be viewed as a game, with each
choice leading to new possibilities but also closing
off others. For instance, if the Serpent in the
Garden is Satan (as in the Catholic reading) then
the eating of the fruit from the Tree of Good and
Evil is a catastrophic error. If, however, the Serpent
is a messenger, representative or disguise of the
powers that exist beyond the Limit (i.e, that dwell
in the Pleroma) then the knowledge of Good and Evil
is, ultimately, a necessary, though painful, step
toward the raising of humans back/up to the Light
of the upper Realms. If the expulsion from paradise
is necessary, then what is the correct understanding
of the Creator and his curse upon the Man and Woman?
So we can see that these choices are not merely
technical details, as the radically divergent world
views of the Gnostic, later heterodox, and various
orthodox movements through out the Christian period
show. This is understood early on in the history
of Christianity, as the gospel of Thomas demonstrates: The
disciples said to Jesus, `Tell us how our end will
be.`
Jesus said, `Have you discovered, then, the beginning,
that you look for the end? For where the beginning
is, there will the end be. Blessed is he who will
take his place in the beginning; he will know the
end and will not experience death.` (Logion 18)
A
time-traveling Valentinian, seeing the Apocalyptic
hysteria and nonsense that grips the Christianity
of the present (at least in the U.S.) would, I think,
simply point out that the perpetually unsuccessful
predictions of the End are a logical outcome of
a failure to understand the nature of the Universe,
and therefore the nature of Salvation. Whereas the
Gospel of Philip says A
Gentile does not die, for he has never lived in
order that he may die. He who has believed in the
truth has found life, and this one is in danger
of dying, for he is alive
today,
we might say that a person who is deluded by the
Powers into thinking they have found “the Truth”
- which we may consider to being more like understanding
than mere belief - but have in fact believed a lie
are simply dead, never having lived. In short: The
rulers (archons) wanted to deceive man, since they
saw that he had a kinship with those that are truly
good. They took the name of those that are good
and gave it to those that are not good, so that
through the names they might deceive him and bind
them to those that are not good. And afterward,
what a favor they do for them! They make them be
removed from those that are not good and place them
among those that are good. These things they knew,
for they wanted to take the free man and make him
a slave to them forever.
-- Gospel of Phillip
Standing
around waiting for the “Rapture” - or whatever -
is as self-destroying as wallowing in the depths
of depravity. Dead is dead.
It is dangerous** to speculate along such lines,
however, without keeping in mind a primary point.
As Hoeller puts it:
…Valentinian
(as well as all other) Gnosticism can be understood
in psychological terms, so that the religious mythologems
treated by the Gnostics are taken to symbolize psychological
conditions and intra-psychic powers of the mind.
Taking this approach we might conclude that what
Valentinus tells us is that because our minds have
lost their self-knowledge, we live in a self-created
world that is lacking in integrity. (Hoeller,
ibid.)
Therefore,
we can see that the Gnostic (or at least the Valentinian)
perspective places the individual at the center
of the soteriological project; it cannot be otherwise
if the saving knowledge is already within you. Salvation
is not an escape from punishment for ethical sin,
it is a right perception of God, the Universe and
one’s ultimate place in it. To be a Gnostic, one
must “put away childish things”(3) indeed.
Reading
the scriptures as a Valentinian
In Valentinus
and the Valentinian Tradition,
David Brons says Members
of the Valentinian school rejected the way most
of their contemporary Christians interpreted the
Bible as being overly literal. In their view, the
Bible has to be interpreted in a spiritual manner.
In some cases, the literal teaching is the spiritual
meaning. e.g. the Sermon on the Mount. But for other,
passages, the true spiritual meaning lay hidden
behind the literal text in allegorical symbols.
Valentinians claimed to have the secret to unlocking
this hidden spiritual meaning. They supported these
conclusions by citing Jesus himself: "The knowledge
about the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been
given to you, but to the rest it comes by means
of parables so that they may look but not see and
listen but not understand"(Luke 8:9-10 cf.
Irenaeus Against Heresies 1:3:1). According to the
Valentinian tradition, Paul and the other apostles
revealed these teachings only to those who were
'spiritually mature' (1 Corinthians 2:6). They identified
their own teaching with these secret teachings that
Jesus taught the to the apostles.( 4)
Two
points are worth noting here. The first is that
the interpretation of sripture is paramount. It
is not enough, perhaps not really important, for
the Christian to have a “correct” list of scriptures.
The Truth is in the understanding of them (or gained
through them), so that we might say that Scripture
is a tool used by the Spirit to trigger the memory
of the (already latent) knowledge, or anamnesis,
of the true nature of the Universe (and thus one’s
place in it). Second, this attitude is an reiteration
of Paul, who it should be remembered had no Christian
Scriptures to work from. He took all of his insights
from the Jewish Scriptures. Clearly the actual text
is not as important as the opening of the mind to
the Spirit such reading engenders.
Bron also gives an overview of the Scriptures used
by the Valentinian school, which I have adapted
here. It is, however, highly recommended that the
entire Valentinus
section of the Gnostic Society website be
read as this brief essay is just a poor
summary of the depth of Valentinian theology.
Valentinian Scripture (N) = included in Nag Hamadi Corpus
Scripture Original to the School
Gospel of Truth (N) (considered likely to have been
written by Valentinus himself)
Letter to Flora
Treatise on the Resurrection (N)
A Valentinian Exposition (N)
Tripartite Tractate (N)
The Exegesis on the Soul (N)
Acts of John
The Gospel of Philip . (N)
First Apocalypse of James(N)
Second Apocalypse of James
Letter of Peter to Philip (N)
Prayer of the Apostle Paul (N)
Writings of other Gnostics useful
to a study of Valentinian theology
The Apocryphon of James (N)
Authoritative Teaching (N)
Apocalypse of Peter (N)
Gospel of Mary
Non-Valentinian Writings used by
the School
The Gospel of Thomas (N)
Gospel of the Egyptians (N)
Proclamation of Peter
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas
Allogenes (N)
Zostrianus (N)
New Testament writings known to have been read
by Valentinians: Gospel according to Matthew
Gospel according to Mark
Gospel according to Luke
Gospel according to John
Romans
I Corinthians
II Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
I Peter
I John
Revelation of John
Permission to copy
in whole or in part is granted providing proper
credit (to me or my sources) is given
** Dangerous because it is so easy to fall into
the trap of condemning everyone else on the planet
(that doesn't see things your way) to Hell. This
is a favorite past time of Orthodox Christians of
whatever flavor since (at least) Dante. Rather,
the point is, the fact of salvation is inherent
in the attainment of "Life", i.e. of Gnosis, since
the one who does so, we are told "will not taste
death". Obviously this does not refer to physical
death. If you aren't in the place of Rest here and
now, you aren't going to find it beyond the grave!
