Читать книгу A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Joseph Cullen Ayer - Страница 87

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. 140-c. 160. The great work of Irenæus against the Gnostics, although having all Gnostics in view, especially deals with the Valentinians in their various forms, because Irenæus was of the opinion that he who refutes their system refutes all (cf. Adv. Hær., IV, præf., 2). It is difficult to reconstruct with certainty the esoteric system of Valentinus as distinguished from possibly later developments of the school, as Irenæus, the principal authority, follows not only Valentinus, but Ptolomæus [pg 089] and others, in describing the system. The following selection of sources gives fragments of the letters and other writings of Valentinus himself as preserved by Clement of Alexandria, passages from Irenæus bringing out distinctive features of the system, and the important letter of Ptolemæus to Flora, one of the very few extant writings of the Gnostics of an early date. It gives a good idea of the character of the exoteric teaching of the school.

Additional source material: The principal authority for the system of the Valentinians is Irenæus, Adv. Hær., Lib. I (ANF), see also Hippolytus, Refut., VI, 24–32 (ANF); “The Hymn of the Soul,” from the Acts of Thomas, trans. by A. A. Bevan, Texts and Studies, III, Cambridge, 1897; The Fragments of Heracleon, trans. by A. E. Burke, Text and Studies, I, Cambridge, 1891; see also ANF, IX, index, p. 526, s. v., Heracleon. The Excerpta Theodoti contained in ANF, VIII, are really the Excerpta Prophetica, another collection, identified with the Excerpta Theodoti by mistake of the editor of the American edition, A. C. Coxe (on the Excerpta, see Zahn, History of the Canon of the New Testament).