The Threefold Nature of a Lost Valentinian Text...

[Peter Kirby]

New blog entry:

http://peterkirby.com/the-threefold-nature.html

In which I look at a reference from which many have said that Valentinus was one of the first "trinitarians."

Introduction:

The text attributed to the second century Gnostic Valentinus called “On the Three Natures,” known to us in a single reference from the fourth century, Marcellus of Ancyra, has at least three possibilities regarding its composition:

Valentinus is, more or less, one of the first Trinitarians.
Valentinus wrote something misunderstood by Marcellus of Ancyra, or known only by title, on a different topic (possibly, on the three natures of man).
Valentinus wrote nothing of the sort, but a text of the title later circulated among Gnostics, with its contents being either about man or about theogony.
Here is the reference:

Now with the heresy of the Ariomaniacs, which has corrupted the Church of God. … These then teach three hypostases, just as Valentinus the heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him ‘On the Three Natures’. For he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is discovered to have filched this from Hermes and Plato. (Logan, A. Marcellus of Ancyra (Pseudo-Anthimus), On the Holy Church: Text, Translation and Commentary. Verses 8-9. Journal of Theological Studies, NS, Volume 51, Pt. 1, April 2000, p.95)

Most discussions online make one of the first two assumptions without mentioning any other possibilities. So let’s go over all three possibilities briefly now, with a discussion of the evidence.

Conclusion:

Perhaps all that Pearson meant is that, given the polemical context in which the title of the text is quoted, the most that can be said with any real probability is that a book titled On the Three Natures or something very similar existed in the fourth century. Did Valentinus write it? None of the earlier authorities for Valentinus mention such a text belonging to Valentinus, and neither has any such text been found so as to evaluate its contents, so making such an ascription seems doubtful at best.

There is at least one book known to us that has a similar but not identical title. That text is the Trimorphic Protennoia (“First Thought in Three Forms,” the title found at the end of the text) found at Nag Hammadi. Another possibility to mention is that Gnostics known to Marcellus had in their possession excerpts of the work of Plotinus known as the Enneads (similar to the manner in which we have found excerpts from philosophers at Nag Hammadi). Plotinus, as published by his student Porphyry, wrote in the third century. Of his work, V.1 was titled, “On the Three Principal Hypostases.”

Knowledge of a work of the title he mentions (On the Three Natures, a lost text) or a similar title in the possession of Gnostics (such as the two just mentioned) could have lead Marcellus of Ancyra to attribute the text he talks about to a famous early Gnostic, Valentinus, as a way of attributing the ideas of his opponents to a known heretic.

- See more at: http://peterkirby.com/the-threefold-nature.html

[stephan happy huller]

Celsus in Book Five seems to indicate the trinity was Platonic in origin and that this would account for the existence of the idea in Valentinus.

[Peter Kirby]

Celsus in Book Five seems to indicate the trinity was Platonic in origin and that this would account for the existence of the idea in Valentinus.

Do you mean this? Origen, Contra Celsus, V.8,

http://earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen165.html
Certainly they say that the Cosmos taken as the whole is God, the Stoics calling it the First God, the followers of Plato the Second, and some of them the Third. According to these philosophers, then, seeing the whole Cosmos is God, its parts also are divine; so that not only are human be ings divine, but the whole of the irrational creation, as being "portions" of the Cosmos; and besides these, the plants also are divine. And if the rivers, and mountains, and seas are portions of the Cosmos, then, since the whole Cosmos is God, are the riven and seas also gods? But even this the Greeks will not assert. Those, however, who preside over rivers and seas (either demons or gods, as they call them), they would term gods. Now from this it follows that the general statement of Celsus, even according to the Greeks, who hold the doctrine of Providence, is false, that if any "whole" be a god, its parts necessarily are divine. But it follows from the doctrine of Celsus, that if the Cosmos be God, all that is in it is divine, being parts of the Cosmos.

Or is there something more explicit?

[MrMacSon]

I thought Tertullianus was one of the first to propose a Trinity ...

[Peter Kirby]

I thought Tertullianus was one of the first to propose a Trinity ...

Yeah, I didn't find the case for a Trinitarian Valentinus convincing either.

[Leucius Charinus]

New blog entry:

http://peterkirby.com/the-threefold-nature.html

In which I look at a reference from which many have said that Valentinus was one of the first "trinitarians."

My position is against those who claim, on the basis of this reference, that Valentinus was one of the first "trinitarians."

My position is based on the following items of evidence and reasoning.

(1) We know that Plotinus was a 'somebody'. He was an important figure in the 3rd century. He was sponsored by the emperors. He was a very influential thinker and philosopher and author to whom senators would listen. He was reported to have many (12?) apostles or disciples amongst whom was Porphyry. Plotinus himself, according to Porphyry, was the student of Ammonius of Alexandria, often termed the "Father of Neoplatonism".

(2) We known that the books of Plotinus were preserved by Porphyry (probably in Rome) and that these books included the "Enneads", and that included a tractate at V.1 entitled, “On the Three Principal Hypostases.” We may surmised that this work was known intimately, not only by his large number of "apostles" / "followers" but, by the time Marcellus of Ancyra wrote in the 4th century, many followers of these followers, and perhaps many "senatorial followers".

In summary it might be claimed that it was "common knowledge" that Plotinus had written about the "Three Natures" or the "Three Hypostases".

We don't need to "Intriguingly" invoke a relatively unknown "Christian identity" by the name of Valentinus to explain this reference in the fragments of Marcellus.

The [Neo-] Platonists and the Gnostics

Your blog article also introduces the link between the so-called "Gnostics" and the Platonists ...

As explained by John M. Dillon, ”In this connexion must be introduced the Gnostic doctrine, found also, as we have seen (above, pp. 211ff.) in Plutarch, of the threefold nature of man, not of body and soul only, but body, soul and spirit (pneuma), which in Plutarch is given the more traditional title of nous. - See more at: http://peterkirby.com/the-threefold-nat ... nev03.dpuf

This I see as an extremely important relationship to be understood, because it is openly admitted that many of the Gnostic writings have [Neo-] Platonic overtones. I write [Neo-] Platonic because many academics no longer maintain a differentiation between "Middle" and "Neo" Platonism on the basis that all of these people would have seen themselves as, and referred to themselves as, the devoted followers of Plato, and his canonical books.

All of the foregoing does not require the hypothesis that some earlier "Christian Valentinus" was perhaps one of the earlier exemplars of a "Christian trinity". In fact it leads the discussion towards the contention that the Christian trinity itself was essentially appropriated from the Platonists (later in the 4th century).

What you experienced as rhetorical questions was essentially a polemic that is to be understood as being directed against those who claim that "Valentinus was flirting with a primitive doctrine of the Trinity", a claim that is not commensurate with the best explanation of the evidence.

There is a final point that I wish to make regarding the connection between the Arians (referred to by Marcellus) and the Platonists, which your blog article does not make mention of, but I will leave this until I can see that there is at least some common ground in the above discussion.

[Peter Kirby]

Definitely there is. Your reply is well-received. I'll come back to this; I just think I should acknowledge your post. I appreciate the time it took to write and the good faith demonstrated for cordial discussion even after, and despite, my own (hot-headed and over-aggressive) approach to the previous.

Thank you.

[Peter Kirby]

I have no real disagreement with what you have said. I might find something more to comment on, if I had read the text of Plotinus (I don't have a copy right now), but I haven't. Thanks again for explaining your ideas.

[andrewcriddle]

One reason I doubt that Valentinus himself described the Trinity as separate hypostases is that this type of analysis of the divinity seems more characteristic of his followers such as Ptolemæus .
Tertullian Against the Valentinians

Valentinus had expected to become a bishop, because he was an able man both in genius and eloquence. Being indignant, however, that another obtained the dignity by reason of a claim which confessorship had given him, he broke with the church of the true faith. Just like those (restless) spirits which, when roused by ambition, are usually inflamed with the desire of revenge, he applied himself with all his might to exterminate the truth; and finding the clue of a certain old opinion, he marked out a path for himself with the subtlety of a serpent. Ptolemæus afterwards entered on the same path, by distinguishing the names and the numbers of the Ænons into personal substances, which, however, he kept apart from God. Valentinus had included these in the very essence of the Deity, as senses and affections of motion.

personal substances is the equivalent of hypostases.

Andrew Criddle