Valentinus

When Carpocrates and Basilides both flourished in Alexandria, a young theologian named Valentinus reportedly saw a vision. He beheld the Logos of God coming to him in the form of a newborn baby. Valentinus questioned the baby to find out who he was. Endowed with an eloquent tongue, the infant replied that he was the Logos, and related the substance of a “tragic tale.” There is an important parallel to this vision. When Christ first appeared to John in the Secret Book of John, he came as a child and told the apostle the mysteries of God, creation, and salvation. The child in the Secret Book suddenly becomes an old man and soon manifests himself as a tri-form being.2 It is nonetheless significant that both Valentinus and the author of the Secret Book depicted Christ as a child revealer. Was the author of the Secret Book “citing” the vision of Valentinus while taking it in a new direction? Or was Valentinus using a type scene known from the Secret Book and elsewhere? In this chapter, we will take a look at what Valentinus did and did not know about traditions later associated with Sethian, Saturninian, and Ophite Christianity based on his genuine fragments (apart from later Valentinian thought).

Copyright © M. David Litwa, 2022

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