Valentinus

Valentinus was an early Christian Gnostic teacher who flourished in the mid-2nd century CE. He is widely regarded as the founder of Valentianism, a prominent branch of Gnosticism within early Christianity. Most accounts place his activity in Rome, though details of his life come from later church historians such as Irenaeus. Some traditions claim he studied in Egypt or Syria and that he was taught by a teacher named Theudas, who was linked by later writers to the apostolic circle.

Valentinian cosmology centers on a transcendent God and a series of emanations called Aeons that compose the Pleroma, the fullness of the divine realm. In this system, the material world is created by a lower, ignorant deity—the Demiurge—while human beings contain a fragment of the divine within. Salvation consists in awakening to gnosis, the knowledge of one’s true origin and destiny, and returning to the fullness. Jesus is portrayed as a revealer of hidden knowledge, whose teachings awaken the inner spark; Valentinians often developed mythic elaborations involving divine pairs (syzygies) and complex interpretations of scriptural figures.

No complete writings of Valentinus survive, but a number of fragments and reports survive in the writings of adversaries such as Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Epiphanius. The Valentinian movement produced diverse schools and scriptures, with some texts later associated with Valentinian thought, such as the Gospel of Truth and the Gospel of Philip, though authorship and dating are debated. The tradition declined after the 3rd century as orthodox Christian authorities defined and marginalized Gnostic groups.