VALENTINIANS. The followers of the Egyptian Gnostic Valentinus (d. c. 100). Valentinus went from Alexandria to Rome about 140 A.D. By 200 A.D. his followers seem to have become very numerous. His theology or philosophy is full of symbolism. The original, invisible, and ineffable Existence is a self existent Abyss, Buthos, whose consort is Silence, Sigd. Buthos and Sige give birth to Mind, Nous, who is a being like the Supreme Buthos, and to his consort Truth, Aletheia. These four form a tetrad of :cons. Mind and Truth give birth to Word, Logos, and his consort, Life, ZOO. Word and Life give birth to Man, AnthrOpos, snd his consort, the Church, Ecclesia. These together form an ogdoad of wons. Word and Life further give birth to five other pains, and Man and Church to six other pairs. This completes a PM.roma of thirty aeons, an Ogdoad, a Decad, and a Dodecad. The Ogdoad consists of higher trons. Wisdom, Sophia, one of the two last :eons in the Dodecad (the other being Will, Thehtos), is seized by an irregular passion to know the Father, the Abyss. She is stopped by the mon /faros, the Boundary set round the Pleroma. But she has already conceived an illegitimate being through her contact with Chaos. This is called Hachamoth, the Desire of Wisdom (Hebrew " wisdom "). To introduce order and har mony into the Pleroma, Mind and Truth, the second pair of 'eons, now produce a sixteenth pair, Christ. and the Holy Spirit. After this all the :eons combine to produce a thirty-third won, Jesus, the Saviour. Through the sending to Hachamoth of, first, the Christ, and secondly Jesus, three kinds of substance arose in the universe, material inanimate substance (Wilco), psychic animate substance (psuchilcO, and pneumatic or spiritual substance (pneumatike). This is the world of the
Kenoma. Hachamoth, expelled from the Pleroma, forms the Demiurgos out of psychic animate substance. The Demiurgos, without knowing it, makes the universe an inferior copy of the Pleroma. He creates mankind, material and psychic. Some of these, through Hacha moth, catch a spark of the spiritual substance, and become superior or spiritual men. The spiritual men do not need to be saved; the material men cannot be saved. The psychic men can be saved If they are helped. " The scheme of Redemption is intended for them. The Redeemer is formed of four elements. The first, with out being actually material, has the semblance of matter; the semblance is sufficient, as matter does not need salva tion. The second element is psychic, the third pneu matic, the fourth divine : this is Jesus, the last :eon. These three last elements then proceed respectively from the Demiurge. Hachamoth. and from the Pleroma. The :von Jesus did not, however, descend into the Redeemer until the moment of his baptism; at the moment of his being brought before Pilate, he returned to the Pleroma, taking with him the pneumatic or spiritual element, and leaving the psychic element, clothed with his material semblance, to suffer " (Duchesne). Finally Hachamoth and the spiritual men will pass into the Pleroma. The Demiurgos and the best of the psychic men will follow. See R. A. Lipsius, Valentines end seine Schule, 1887; J. H. Blunt; Louis Duchesne, Hist.: Max B. Weinstein, end 1910.