Home Topics New and Updated Esotericism Gnosis		Introduction	Origins	Teachings	Schools
		Influences	Glossary	Books	Links

The Valentinian Cosmology

graphic from The Tradition of Saint Valentine

Valentinus was a second-century Christian who was expelled by the early Church (who doubtless found his theology too esoteric) and went on to found his own school.  It is most unlikely that all  the doctrines termed "Valentinian" are attributable to him; but rather they were developed by his students.  In keeping with the magnificent creativity of Hellenistic Gnosticism - so different from the straight-jacket conformity and heresy-hunting of the Christian Church - each of these students in turn founded their own variant schools, so that we have a Ptolemaeic Valentinism, a Heracleonan Valentinism, and so on.

The Valentinian Aeonology follows basically the same pattern as the Sethian one, although it differs in detail.  This account of Valentinian cosmology is taken in the main from Hans Jonas' The Gnostic Religion, a scholarly work which predates the publication in English of the Nag Hammadi Library, but nevertheless provides a very useful overview of Gnosticism.  Here he is paraphrasing and summarising the accounts of the Christian polemicists such as Irenaeus who, despite their sarcasm and frequent lack of understanding, nevertheless did at least make an attempt to understand their Gnostic contemporaries.

In the first chapter of a rather heavy and academic work on this subject, another scholar of Gnosticism, Elaine Pagels, explains that the Valentinian Ptolemy distinguishes three transcendent Principles:

1. The Father, who "emits all things"
2. The Arche (primal principle), also called Nous, "Son", Monogenes (Only-begotten), and Theos (God), the latter because he was "generated from Theos".  This Arche bears within himself seminally the whole of the Pleroma.
3. The Logos, generated in turn from the Arche, and also (for the same reason) called Theos.  He bears within himself "the whole being of the Aions", which he later formed.  The female counterpole of the Logos is Zoe, "Life".

So here we have the concept of emanation and unfolding within a totally transcendent Divine reality, a common and central theme in almost all the Gnostic schools.

Valentinus and the Valentinians
(Valentinus home page)
a superb site - comprehensive coverage of the Valentinian movement. Originally on a spearate website, it is now archived in the Gnostic Society Library.

Kheper Home | Gnosticism main page | Topics Index | New or updated | Search

Except where otherwise attributed or quoted, all text is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.

images not loading? | error messages? | broken links? | suggestions? | criticism?

contact me

      
validate this page