further that he also went to Rome, and appeared as a religious teacher there, but that, both in Egypt and at Rome, he was regarded as orthodox, and first made shipwreck of faith in Cyprus and began to disseminate heretical opinions. But this statement rests merely on a combination of different accounts. According to Irenaeus, Valentinus "flourished" at Rome in the times of Pius and Anicetus. Epiphanius, on the other hand, read (as we learn from Philaster, Haer. 38) in the σύνταγμα of Hippolytus, that Valentinus stood once in the communion of the church, but being drawn by overweening pride into apostasy had, during his residence in Cyprus, propounded his heretical doctrine. But we cannot doubt that when Irenaeus speaks of Valentinus's flourishing at Rome during the times of Pius and Anicetus, he refers to the fact that his chief activity as a religious teacher was then displayed, and that under Anicetus he stood at the head of his own Gnostic school. With this there is no difficulty in reconciling Tertullian's statement, that Valentinus no more than Marcion separated himself from the Church on his arrival at Rome (Praescript. Haeret. 36). For the Gnostics, for the very sake of disseminating their doctrines the more freely, made a great point of remaining in the Catholic church, and made use for that end of a twofold mode of teaching, one exoteric for the simpler sort of believers, the other esoteric for the initiated, as is shewn in the fragments which have come down to us, the most part of which purposely keep the peculiarly Gnostic doctrines in the background.
We may, then, conclude that Valentinus, towards the end of Hadrian's reign (c. 130), appeared as a teacher in Egypt and in Cyprus, and early in the reign of Antoninus Pius he came to Rome, and during the long reign of Antoninus was a teacher there. He had probably developed and secretly prepared his theological system before he came to Rome, whither he doubtless removed for the same motive as led other leaders of sects, e.g. Cerdon and Marcion, to go to Rome—the hope to find a wider field for his activity as a teacher. From a similar motive he attached himself at first to the communion of the Catholic church.
II. History of the Sect.—Valentinus had numerous adherents. They divided themselves, we are told, into two schools—the anatolic or oriental, and the Italian school (Pseud-Orig. Philosoph. vi. 35, p. 195, Miller, cf. Tertullian, adv. Valentinian. c. 11, and the title prefixed to the excerpts of Clemens Εκ τοῦ Θευδότου καὶ τῆς Ἀνατολικῆς καλουμένης διδασκαλίας). The former of these schools was spread through Egypt and Syria, the latter in Rome, Italy, and S. Gaul. Among his disciples, Secundus appears to have been one of the earliest. Tertullian (adv. Valentinian. 4) and the epitomators of Hippolytus mention him after Ptolemaeus (Pseudo-Tertull. Haer. 13; Philast. Haer. 40); the older work, on the other hand, excerpted by Irenaeus is apparently correct in naming him first as Valentinus's earliest disciple (Haer. i. 11, 2). Then follows, in the same original work as quoted by Irenaeus (Haer. i. 11, 3), another illustrious teacher (ἄλλος ἐπιφανὴς διδάσκαλος), of whom a misunderstanding of later heresiologists has made a Valentinian leader, named Epiphanes; who this illustrious teacher was is matter of dispute. The more probable conjecture is with Neander (Gnostische Systeme, p. 169) and Salmon to suppose it was Marcus (17), whose first Tetrad exactly corresponds to that of this unnamed teacher (cf. Haer. i. 15, 1, καθ᾿ ἃ προείρηται). Marcus himself will, in any case, be among the earliest of Valentinus's disciples (Lipsius, Quellen der ältesten Ketzergesch. p. 33). His labours in Asia were probably contemporaneous with Valentinus's residence and activity at Rome, and there a "godly elder and herald of the truth," whom Irenaeus quotes from as an older authority, made him the subject of metrical objurgation as the "forerunner of anti-Christian malice" (Iren. Haer. i. 15, 6).
PTOLEMAEUS, on the other hand, was a contemporary of Irenaeus himself, and one of the leaders of the Italian school (Iren. Haer. Praef. 2, Pseud-Orig. Philos. vi. 35), whom Hippolytus in the Syntagina, and probably on the basis of an arbitrary combination of Iren. i. 8, 5 with 11, 2, puts at the head of all other disciples of Valentinus. Heracleon was still younger than Ptolemaeus, and the second head of the Italian school. His doctrinal system appears to be that mainly kept in view in the Philosophumena (cf. vi. 29, 35). Irenaeus names him as it were in passing (Haer. ii. 4, 1), while Tertullian designates his relation to his predecessors with the words, Valentinus shewed the way, Ptolemaeus walked along it, Heracleon struck out some side paths (adv. Valentinian. 4). He makes also the like remark concerning Secundus and Marcus. Clemens speaks of Heracleon (c. 193) as the most distinguished among the disciples of Valentinus (Strom. iv. 9, 73, p. 595), meaning, of course, among those of his own time. Origen's statement, therefore, that he had a personal acquaintance with Valentinus (Origen, in Joann. t. ii. 8) is to be received with caution. In part contemporaneously with him appear to have worked the heads of the anatolic (oriental) school Axionikos and Bardesanes (Ἀρδησιάνης, Philos. vi. 35), who both lived into the first decennia of cent. iii.
Axionikos was still working at Antioch when Tertullian composed his book against the Valentinians, therefore c. 218 (Tertull. l.c.). We cannot here discuss how far the celebrated Edessene Gnostic BARDESANES (ob. 223) is rightly accounted a Valentinian. Tertullian indicates Axionikos as the only one who in his day still represented the original teaching of Valentinus. Theotimus, therefore, who is previously mentioned by Tertullian, and seems to have occupied himself much with the "Figures of the Law," was, it appears, an older teacher. The same was also probably the case with Alexander, the Valentinian whose syllogisms Tertullian had in his hands (de Carne Christi cc. 16 sqq.).
Concerning the later history of the Valentinian sect we have but meagre information. Tertullian, writing c. 218, speaks of the Valentinians in his book against them as the "frequentissimum collegium inter haereticos." This is confirmed by what is told us of the
