synoptical than that of Irenaeus. The original authority on which this description is based cannot have been the same as that in the Syntagma which belonged to the anatolic school, the former being a product of the Western or Italian. The doctrinal system reproduced by Pseud-Origines is in general akin to the Ptolemaic presented by Irenaeus. But his original authority is entirely independent of the sources used by Irenaeus.
Tertullian's tractate adversus Valentinianos is not an independent authority. Apart from a few personal notices concerning him and his disciples which he may have taken from the lost work of Proculus (c. 4, cf. c. 11), his whole account is a paraphrase of Irenaeus, whom he follows almost word for word, and more or less faithfully from c. 7 onwards.
Epiphanius (Haer. xxxi. 9–32) has incorporated the whole long section of Irenaeus (i. 1–10) in his Panarion. Haer. xxxii. and xxxiv. (Secundus, Marcus) are simply taken from Irenaeus. He follows Irenaeus also in his somewhat arbitrary way in what he says about Ptolemaeus, Colarbasus, Heracleon (Haer. xxxiii. xxxv. xxxvi.). On the other hand, Haer. xxxi. 7, 8, is taken from the Syntagma of Hippolytus: Haer. xxxiii. 3–7 contains the important letter of PTOLEMAEUS to Flora. Haer. xxxi. 5 and 6 gives a fragment of an unknown Valentinian writing, from which the statements in c. 2 are partly derived. This writing, with its barbarous names for the Aeons and its mixture of Valentinian and Basilidian doctrines, shows anatolic Valentinianism as already degenerate.
Later heresiologists, e.g. Theodoret, who (Haer. Fab. i. 7–9) follows Irenaeus and Epiphanius, are not independent authorities.
V. The System.—A review of the accounts given by the Fathers confirms the judgment that, with the means at our command, it is very difficult to distinguish between the original doctrine of Valentinus and the later developments made by his disciples. A description of his system must start from the Fragments, the authenticity of which (apart from the so-called ὅρος Οὐαλεντίνου in Dial. de Recta Fide) is unquestioned. But from the nature of these fragments we cannot expect to reconstruct the whole system out of them. >From an abundant literature a few relics only have been preserved. Moreover, the kinds of literature to which these fragments belong—letters, homilies, hymns—shew us only the outer side of the system, while its secret Gnostic doctrine is passed over and concealed, or only indicated in the obscurest manner. The modes of expression in these fragments are brought as near as possible to those in ordinary church use. We see therein the evident desire and effort of Valentinus to remain in the fellowship of the Catholic church. Of specific Gnostic doctrines two only appear in their genuine undisguised shape, that of the celestial origin of the spiritual man (the Pneumaticos), and that of the Demiurge; for the docetic Christology was not then, as is clear from Clemens Alexandrinus, exclusively peculiar to the Gnostics. All the more emphatically is the anthropological and ethical side of the system insisted on in these fragments.
As the world is an image of the living Aeon (τοῦ ζῶντος αἰῶνος), so is man an image of the pre-existent man of the ἄνθρωπος προών. Valentinus, according to Clemens Alexandrinus (Valentini Homil. ap. Clem. Strom. iv. 13, 92), spoke of the Sophia as an artist (ζωγράφος) making this visible lower world a picture of the glorious Archetype, but the hearer or reader would as readily understand the heavenly Wisdom of the Book of Proverbs to be meant by this Sophia as the 12th and fallen Aeon. Under her (according to Valentinus) stand the world-creative angels, whose head is the Demiurge. Her formation (πλάσμα) is Adam created in the name of the Ἄνθρωπος προών. In him thus made a higher power puts the seed of the heavenly pneumatic essence (σπέρμα τῆς ἄνωθεν οὐσίας). Thus furnished with higher insight, Adam excites the fears of the angels; for even as κοσμικοὶ ἄνθρωποι are seized with fear of the images made by their own hands to bear the name of God, i.e. the idols, so these angels cause the images they have made to disappear (Ep. ad Amicos ap. Clem. Alex. Strom. ii. 8, 36). The pneumatic seed (πνεῦμα διαφέρον or γένος διαφέρον) nevertheless remains in the world, as a race by nature capable of being saved (φύσει σωζόμενον γένος), and which has come down from a higher sphere in order to put an end to the reign of death. Death originates from the Demiurge, to whom the word (Ex. xxxiii. 20) refers that no one can see the face of God without dying. The members of the pneumatic church are from the first immortal, and children of eternal life. They have only assumed mortality in order to overcome death in themselves and by themselves. They shall dissolve the world without themselves suffering dissolution, and be lords over the creation and over all transitory things (Valent. Hom. ap. Clem. Strom. iv. 13, 91 seq.). But without the help of the only good Father the heart even of the spiritual man (the pneumaticos) cannot be cleansed from the many evil spirits which make their abode in him, and each accomplishes his own desire. But when the only good Father visits the soul, it is hallowed and enlightened, and is called blessed because one day it shall see God. This cleansing and illumination is a consequence of the revelation of the Son (ib. ii. 20, 114).
We learn from the fragments only (Valent. Ep. ad Agathopoda ap. Clem. Strom. iv. 7, 59) that Jesus, by steadfastness and abstinence, earned for Himself Deity, and by virtue of His abstinence did not even suffer to be corrupted the food which He received (i.e. it did not undergo the natural process of digestion), because He Himself was not subject to corruption. It must remain undetermined how Valentinus defined the relation of Jesus to the υἱός. If the text of the passage quoted above be sound, Jesus put Himself in possession of Godhead by His own abstinence, a notion we should expect in Ebionite rather than in Gnostic circles. But the true reading may be εἰκάζετο (not εἰργάζετο), and in that case the meaning will be that by an extraordinary asceticism Jesus avoided every kind of material pollution, and so became Himself the image of the incorruptible and
