apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

THE GENUINENESS. 385
Lastly; coeval with, and even prior to Marcion, Valentinus
emerges into prominence, as a heresiarch. Though a native of Alexandria,
he too taught at Rome (c. a.d, 140— 160). Valentinus was the
parent of many teachers and many schools of Gnostic theology. The
Valentinian doctrine called forth refutations from all the ablest theologians
of the time, notably Irennsus, Clement of Alexandria, and
Terlullian. It was quite the most prominent among the heretical
systems of the early ages, which challenged the supremacy of the
Catholic Church. It was popular alike in the East and in the
West. It had an extensive literature of its own. Here at all events
we might expect some side thrust, even if there were no direct blow,
at a rank and \videspread heresy. Yet there is not a word about the
primal Bythos the Unutterable, about the successively generated pairs
of aeons, about the Ogdoad and the Decad and the Dodecad, about
the sorrows and vicissitudes of Sophia Achamoth cast out of the pleroma
and stranded in the world of shadow, about the story of creation and
redemption, about the triple division of mankind into the spiritual, the
psychical, and the material, about any of the fantastical myths of this
highly imaginative system of speculative theology.
One passage however has been alleged by impugners of the
genuineness of these letters, as containing a direct attack on Valentinian
doctrine and therefore betraying a gross anachronism. No student of
the Ignatian controversy will need to be reminded of the passage
Magtl. 8 d (jiavepwaa'i iavrov Sia 'Irjaov Xpto"Toi5 tov vlov avrov, os Icttiv
avTov Adyos o'tStos ovk diro (nyyj