the Aeons. Having become visible on earth, He is no longer called by the apostle Monogenes (simply), but ὡς μονογενής. For though remaining in Himself one and the same, He is in the creation called πρωτόκοτος, and in the Pleroma Μονογενής, and appears in each locality as He can be comprehended there.
The preceding survey shews that in the first 42 paragraphs or sections of Clemens's fragments from Theodotus we really have a well-connected and consistent doctrinal system. The scattered notices in §§ 1–28 fit tolerably well into the dogmatic whole, and doubtless we have here an account of the so-called anatolic school, and in substance the oldest form of the Valentinian system.
The historical development of the Valentinian doctrine can be traced with only approximate certainty and imperfectly. The roots of the system are to be found in the old vulgar Gnosis. For even if the original dualistic foundation is repressed and concealed by a Platonizing pantheism, it still gives evident tokens of its continued existence in the background. The ὕλη and "dark waters" into which the Ophitic Sophia sinks down (Iren. i. 30, 3) are here changed into the κένωμα or ὑστέρημα, which in antithesis to the πλήρωμα is simply an equivalent for the Platonic μὴ ὄν.
The notion of a psychical Christus who passes through Mary as water through a conduit (Iren. vii. 2) is to be found everywhere in the Italic school (Philos. vi. 35, pp. 194 seq.).
The centre of gravity of the whole system lies undoubtedly in its speculative interests. The names alone of the 30 Aeons are a proof of this. It deserves notice that the designations Νοῦς and Μονογενής applied to the first masculine principle emanating from the supreme Father do not seem to have been used by Valentinus himself. It was called simply Πατήρ or Ἄνθρωπος (νἱὸς ἀνθρώπου). It is a genuinely speculative feature that the knowledge of the Father through the Son is derived from a union of the Spirit of Love with the Spirit of Knowledge.
Since the doctrine of Valentinus concerning the Aeons originated in the cosmogonic and astral powers of the old Syrian Gnosis, one cannot doubt that the Aeons were originally thought of as mythological personages and not as personified notions, although Tertullian (adv. Valentin. 4) would refer the former view to Ptolemaeus, and not Valentinus, as its first author.
A yet more widely different conception of the Valentinian doctrine of Aeons is found in the fragment given by Epiphanius (xxxi. 5–6). Here, too, the speculative interest is manifest in the endeavour to follow up in detail the process of the emanation of individual Aeons within the Pleroma from the Αὐτοπάτωρ. But the whole description, bathed as it is in sensuous warmth, with its peculiar plays with numbers and its barbarous names for individual Aeons, appears to be merely a degenerate Marcosian form of Gnosis.
Finally, we have a quite peculiar transformation of the Valentinian system in the doctrine of the so-called Docetae, as preserved in the Philosophumena (viii. 8–11). From the πρῶτος θεός, who is small as the seed of a fig-tree but infinite in power, proceed first of all three Aeons, which by the perfect number ten enlarge themselves to thirty Aeons; from these proceed innumerable other bisexual Aeons, and from these an infinite multiplicity of Ideas, of which those of the third Aeon are expressed and shapen in the lower world of darkness as φωτειναὶ χαρακτῆρες.
The Platonic foundation of the Valentinian system is very perceptible in this its last offshoot, though mixed up in a peculiar way with Oriental Dualism. At the same time these Docetae endeavour to reduce the metaphysical distinctions which they maintain to merely gradual ones. No part of Christendom therefore is entirely excluded from the knowledge of the Redeemer, and participation in His Redemption: all, even those of the lower grades of the spirit-world, participate at least ἐκ μέρους in the Truth. The way in which all, and each according to his measure, attain knowledge of the truth, is, as in the doctrine of the church, Faith. Since the Redeemer's advent—so we read expressly—"Faith is announced for the forgiveness of sins."
Beside working out philosophical problems, the disciples of Valentinus were much occupied with seeking traces of their Master's doctrine in Holy Scripture. The excerpts of Clemens and abundant notices in Irenaeus tell of an allegorical method of scriptural exposition pursued with great zeal in the Valentinian schools, not limited to the Gospels or the Pauline Epistles, but extending to the O.T., and attaching special significance to the history of creation in Genesis. Valentinian expositors shew a special preference for St. John's Gospel, and above all for its prologue. Some allegorical expositions have been preserved belonging to the anatolic school (Exc. ex Theod. §§ 6, 7) and others derived from Ptolemaeus (Iren. i. 8, 5). But before all we must make mention of the labours of Heracleon, of which Origen has preserved numerous specimens. From Heracleon proceeded the first known commentary on St. John's Gospel.
VI. Literature.—Valentinus occupies a distinguished place in all works on Gnosticism, e.g. in Neander, Baur, Matter, Lipsius, Möhler (Geschichte der Kosmologie in der Christlichen Kirche), Mansel (The Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Centuries—a posthumous work, ed. by Bp. Lightfoot), and in the Prolegomena of Harvey's ed. of Irenaeus. The best monograph is by Heinrici (Die Valentinianische Gnosis und die Heilige Schrift, Berlin, 1851), with which cf. the review by Lipsius (Protestantische Kirchenzeitung, 1873, pp. 174–186). [Heracleon; Marcus (17).]
[R.A.L.]
Valerianus (1), C. Publius Licinius, emperor. a.d. 253–260. Before the close of 253 Valerian was proclaimed emperor by the legions of Rhaetia and Noricum, and he associated his son Gallienus with him in that dignity.
Their reigns were the most disastrous period in the history of Rome until that of Honorius. The empire seemed on the verge of dissolution. Every frontier was menaced by barbarian attacks, and even the interior provinces were invaded and ravaged. A German host entered Italy itself, and penetrated to Ravenna. The Franks, now first appearing under this name, assailed the Rhine frontier. The
