The Original Doctrine of Valentinus the Gnostic

Abstract

In the beginning On revient toujours a ses premiers amours. During the Second World War, in difficult circumstances, I tried to reconstruct the primitive doctrine of the Egyptian heresiarch Valentinus. The results of my exertions were published in the first issue of the journal Vigiliae Christianae (1947). This article was nothing more than a provisional attempt to unravel a tangled tale. But it so happened that it became basic, when Ptolemaeus' Epistle to Flora was published and the relation of his views on the Old Testament to those of his Master (Valentinus) were discussed; somewhat later, on May 10th 1952, the Jung Codex was acquired with five unknown gnostic writings which were held to reflect successive stages in the evolution of the school of Valentinus. Our basic presumption in editing these works was that Valentinus had been much more radical than his followers in the so-called Italic