The fascinating Ptolemy/Ptolemaeus's 'Letter to Flora'

[MrMacSon]

From Dunderberg, Ismo. Beyond Gnosticism : Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus, 2008

The only surviving first-hand document of Ptolemaeus, one of the most renowned Valentinian teachers, is a didactic treatise usually called his Letter to Flora. With this text, Ptolemaeus seeks to convince Flora, the addressee, that there exists, in addition to the Father of All, an inferior Creator-God (Demiurge) whose character becomes visible in the biblical law.

Ptolemaeus’s treatise must have enjoyed a remarkable popularity among early Christians in late antiquity. The text survives as quoted in Epiphanius’s antiheretical compendium Panarion, which was written about two hundred years after Ptolemaeus composed his Letter to Flora. The mere fact that Epiphanius still had access to this text shows that it was in circulation for a considerable period of time. This suggests that there were people who found Ptolemaeus’s views so compelling that they wanted to preserve and promote the text by making or ordering new copies of it.

Ptolemaeus’s treatise offers a unique glimpse of the educational strategy of Valentinian teachers. His text concludes with a promise of more advanced teaching, if the addressee proves “worthy of the apostolic tradition.” The text, thus, is presented as an introductory treatise that needs to be complemented with additional teaching. This shows that Ptolemaeus adapted his instruction to a student’s stage of development.

Another noteworthy aspect of Ptolemaeus’s educational strategy is his outspoken concern with a Christian way of life. His text bears witness to the intrinsic connection between philosophical (or “theological,” or “mythical,” if you like) discourse and lifestyle that was characteristic of both of ancient philosophers and of early Christian teachers. Ptolemaeus is not only occupied with demonstrating the right opinion about the Creator-God; he also offers moral instruction to which he no doubt expects his addressee to adhere. The ethical aspect is prominent in the allegorical interpretation Ptolemaeus offers on the cultic laws in the Hebrew Bible. Contrary to what one may expect, this interpretation is not connected with any kind of heterodox (“Gnostic”) theology but with moral instruction that is very similar to what we find in other Christian sources. This instruction makes the allegorical interpretation in Ptolemaeus’s treatise strikingly different from the sample of Valentinian allegorical exegesis in Irenaeus.

Ptolemaeus’s text is significant also because it bears witness to a competition among early Christian groups in the second century. Ptolemaeus is apparently well aware of other contemporary positions about the biblical law and engages himself in a discussion with these positions. His treatise shows a specific affinity with the teachings of Marcion. Whereas scholars usually interpret Ptolemaeus’s argumentation as an attack against Marcion and his followers, I believe a more nuanced assessment of his relationship to Marcionite theology is needed.

Ptolemaeus’s own position that the Creator-God is neither the supreme God (as some people claim) nor the devil (as other people claim), and the arguments he offers in support of this position, are, in fact, very close to those of Marcion.

Yet another issue that needs to be reconsidered is the question of what Ptolemaeus wanted to achieve with his treatise. The usual explanation is that he attempted to dupe an orthodox Christian woman into Gnostic heresy, the hidden agenda of which was to be revealed to her at a later stage. The “hidden agenda,” according to this interpretation, is the Valentinian doctrine described by Irenaeus in Against Heresies 1.1–7, often identified as the “system” of Ptolemaeus.

This approach to Ptolemaeus’s treatise seems utterly problematic to me. Not only does it give priority to the second-hand information derived from Irenaeus over the first-hand information on Ptolemaeus’s views, but it also perpetuates old prejudices derived from the early anti-Valentinian polemicists such as Tertullian, who complained: “They do not even reveal their secrets to their own disciples before they make them of their own, but instead they have a trick by which they persuade them before they teach.” Similar complaints were issued already earlier by Irenaeus, upon whom Tertullian depends in his portrayal of Valentinians. However, Valentinians were probably less secretive about their teaching than Irenaeus and Tertullian want us to believe. Irenaeus himself says that he was able to gather information on their teachings by conversing with them and that he also had access to their texts.

Moreover, to be quite precise, Irenaeus does not attribute the Valentinian theology presented in his work to Ptolemaeus, but to Ptolemaeus’s followers. In addition, neither Ptolemaeus’s views about the Creator-God nor his allegorical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible are entirely compatible with what Irenaeus says about the teaching of Ptolemaeus’s followers. Consequently, the Valentinian teaching referred to in Irenaeus’s Against Heresies 1.1–7 cannot be identified with Ptolemaeus’s “hidden” teaching.

It is, rather, advisable to interpret Ptolemaeus’s Letter to Flora without trying to read too much developed Valentinian mythology into it. It is true that the subsequent teaching promised by Ptolemaeus deals with the question of how “other kinds of natures, the destructive one and that in the middle” evolved from the Father of the All, who is incorruptible and good. It is possible that Ptolemaeus planned to answer this question by introducing a cosmogonic myth similar to what we have in Irenaeus. However, it cannot be known with certainty whether this was Ptolemaeus’s plan, and if it was, we cannot be sure whether the myth he had in mind was identical with what we now find in Irenaeus. It is, therefore, better to refrain from too much guesswork on this issue and concentrate on the text itself.

What makes Ptolemaeus an especially interesting figure is that Justin Martyr, in his 2 Apology (possibly written in 152), mentions a Christian teacher called Ptolemaeus, who was put to death in Rome under the prefect Urbicus (144–160). If this Ptolemaeus is identical with the Valentinian Ptolemaeus—an issue subject to debate among scholars—Justin’s work supplies us with additional information relevant for the interpretation of Ptolemaeus’s text.

Ptolemaeus’s Argument

Ptolemaeus’s treatise stands out in ancient Christian literature because of its unusual clarity. The text was obviously composed with great care. Its arrangement follows the classical Greco-Roman rhetorical tradition of the composition of public speech (see table 5.1). It can be inferred from the careful composition of Ptolemaeus’s text that it was written to be persuasive. It can also be assumed that the text was addressed to an audience that had high expectations not only as to what was argued but also as to how the argument should be built to carry conviction.

Table 5.1 Arrangement of Public Speech in Antiquity and in Ptolemaeus’s Letter to Flora

Arrangement in Greco-Roman public speech	Ptolemaeus’s Letter to Flora
Introduction (prooimion/exordium)	Introduction (33.3.1): The topic of the treatise
Narration (of the course of events) (diēgēsis/narratio)	Narration (33.3.2-7) • two opposition views of the law in the Hebrew Bible (33.3.2) • a brief refutation of both views (33.3.3-6) • conclusion
Specification of the topic (prothesis/divisio)	Specification of the topic and of the arguments (33.3.8) • Two questions discussed in the treatise ...(a) of what kind is the law? ...(b) who gave this law? • Description of the arguments: "We will demonstrate our .. claims with the words of the Savior"
Argumentation (pistis/argumentatio)	Argumentation (33.4.1-2) (1) Of what kind is the law? • Statement #1: The law in the Hebrew Bible contains not ..only the divine law, but also human additions (33.4.1–2) • Demonstration (pistōsis/confirmatio) (33.4.3–13) • Conclusion (33.5.14) Statement #2: God’s own law is divided into three parts (33.5.1–2) • Demonstration (33.5.3-13) (2) Who gave the divine part of the biblical law? • Summary of the preceding section (33.7.1) • Statement #3 and demonstration: The divine part of ..the law was given by an inferior Creator-God (33.7.2-7)
Conclusion (epilogos/conclusio)	Conclusion (33.7.8-10) • Announcement of the subsequent topic • Concluding words

Ptolemaeus’s treatise begins with a narratio in which two opposite views of the biblical law are briefly described and refuted:

• Some claim that the God and the Father passed [the Law of Moses]. Others, however, take the opposite course and obstinately maintain that it was issued by the devil, the destructive adversary. This also means that they ascribe the creation of the world to him, claiming that this one is the Father and the maker of the all. They stutter in every possible way and contend in singing with each other. Both parties, even among themselves, completely miss the truth that lies in front of them.

In introducing the “state of the question,” Ptolemaeus employs the well-known rhetorical technique of diairesis, in which “several possibilities are listed and all but one eliminated.” The position Ptolemaeus argues for is that the biblical law—or parts of it, as will turn out later—was given by the Creator-God, who is neither identical with the Father of All nor with the devil. Moreover, Ptolemaeus infers from the biblical law that the Creator-God, who gave this law, can be neither good, like the supreme God, nor evil, like the devil, but just (dikaios). Unlike most early Christian theologians, Ptolemaeus therefore makes a distinction between “just” and “good,” regarding the former as an inferior quality.

To prove his point, Ptolemaeus engages in a subtle analysis of the biblical law, in which he shows good command of other contemporary positions (for a comparison, see the section “Analogies to Ptolemaeus’s Opinions About the Law,” below). The first step in his argument is the removal of the human additions from the biblical law. Ptolemaeus traces two kinds of human additions, those stemming from Moses and those derived from the elders. As evidence for the additions made by Moses, Ptolemaeus adduces...the command not to divorce, based upon Genesis 2:23–24, is opposed to Moses’s legislation that permits divorce (~Matthew 19:3–9). From this opposition, Ptolemaeus infers that the biblical law contains Moses’s additions contradicting God’s will.

Ptolemaeus does not, however, denounce Moses, but describes him as being between the rock and the hard place: Moses permitted divorce as a concession “because of the weakness of those who were supposed to follow the law.” Ptolemaeus’s interpretation is [based Matt. 19:8] putting the blame for Moses’s command on the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees as representatives of Israel: “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives” (NRSV). Ptolemaeus explains this position by saying that living together reluctantly would lead to a greater damage than would divorce. In other words, although Moses’s ordinance was against the divine will, its intention was good: this ordinance was needed to prevent “a total destruction.”

As for the additions made to the law by the elders, Ptolemaeus [says] “the tradition of the elders” should not be used as an excuse not to obey the commandment “Honor your father and your mother,” [as Matt 15:1-19 says] Jesus claimed Pharisees and scribes did. This argument may not seem persuasive since—as Epiphanius pointed out with undisguised schadenfreude —“the tradition of the elders” referred to in this passage does not appear in the Hebrew Bible. Ptolemaeus’s interpretation, however, was hardly completely misguided. He probably took Jesus’s words as referring to the oral law, which, according to Jewish tradition, was given at Sinai simultaneously with the written Torah and was transmitted to the people of Israel by the elders.

It is indeed striking that Ptolemaeus engages in this discussion related to the oral Torah, since it is not particularly important for his case. Given that his purpose was to demonstrate that there are human additions to the law, it would have sufficed for him to show that the biblical law contains Moses’s legislation. A reference to the traditions of the elders is important, however, if Ptolemaeus needed to convince his addressee(s) about his expertise as regards contemporary theories about the biblical law.

The second step in Ptolemaeus’s argument is the claim that the remaining divine part of the biblical law, purified from human additions, is not entirely perfect either. Ptolemaeus separates the divine law in the Hebrew Bible into three parts, which are (1) the Ten Commandments, “written on two tablets,” representing “the pure legislation”; (2) “the laws interwoven with injustice,” that is, laws based upon retaliation; and (3) cultic laws.

According to Ptolemaeus, the Savior fulfilled the Ten Commandments (by making them perfect) and abolished the laws based upon retaliation. Moreover, the Savior showed that the cultic laws should no longer be understood literally but “spiritually”—as moral guidance of conduct intended for Christians. Now that the “bodily” observance of the cultic laws has come to an end, their “spiritual” meaning for Christians has become apparent.

Ptolemaeus’s “spiritual” interpretation of the cultic laws is entirely pragmatic. In his view, the cultic laws correctly understood give instruction about the right Christian way of life. Instead of sacrificing animals, Christians are expected to offer “spiritual sacrifices,” which include praise to God, fellowship (koinōnia) with other people, and beneficence (eupoiïa). Moreover, Ptolemaeus contends that circumcision does not mean fleshly circumcision but the 'circumcision of the heart' and that the Sabbath is observed by avoiding evil deeds.

Dunderberg, Ismo. Beyond Gnosticism : Myth, Lifestyle, and Society in the School of Valentinus: pp.77-82

More to come : including 'Context: Ptolemaeus versus Marcion' !

[MrMacSon]

Ptolemaeus applies the latter interpretation to fasting as well: spiritual fasting means abstaining from evil deeds. Nevertheless, Ptolemaeus mentions in this connection that there are “some among us” who practice “visible” fasting. Visible fasting can be beneficial for the soul, Ptolemaeus says, if it is not practiced only because of convention. Visible fasting is advantageous for those who are not yet able to observe the spiritual fast. This argument implies that visible fasting is no longer necessary for those who have correctly understood the spiritual meaning of fasting. Ptolemaeus’s spiritual interpretation of the cultic laws, however, does not mean a lax moral attitude, for which anti-Valentinian authors blamed Valentinian “spiritual” Christians.

It is “the laws interwoven with injustice” that form the most significant proof for Ptolemaeus’s contention that the god described in the Hebrew Bible is not perfect. According to Ptolemaeus, the law that demands “to take an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and to revenge murder with murder” is incompatible with “the nature and goodness of the Father of the All.” Ptolemaeus had already argued that Moses permitted divorce because of the weakness of those observing the law and in order to prevent greater damage. Now Ptolemaeus repeats the same argument in connection with the divine legislation based upon the principle of retaliation. He contends that this part of the divine law was necessary because of the weakness of those who were supposed to observe the law, that is, the Jews, and that the good intention of these laws was to prevent greater evil.

What makes the laws based upon vengeance problematic, however, is that they contradict the divine commandment “You shall not kill” in the decalogue. In addition, despite their good intentions, these laws increase evil. For if a murder is punished with death as the biblical law orders, Ptolemaeus argues, the same unjust act that was committed is repeated with the result that there are ultimately two murders instead of one. Thus, the one who seeks revenge for an offence acts as wrongly as the offender. Hence Ptolemaeus concludes that the god who issued the law permitting revenge cannot be perfect. Although the intention of this law is to prohibit evil, its consequence is an increase of evil.

For Ptolemaeus, the contradiction created by the lex talionis shows that the god who gave it was “fooled by necessity.” He “did not notice” the incongruity between the law’s intention and its factual consequences. However, because of its good intention and because it “destroys injustice,” this law cannot be satanic. Therefore, Ptolemaeus concludes, the divine law in the Bible goes back to the Creator-God, who is righteous—but not good.

Ptolemaeus qualifies the righteousness of the Creator-God in a way that makes this god a being between the good God and the devil. According to Ptolemaeus, the Creator-God’s justice is that of a judge. The justice peculiar to this god is also “minor” because he is born, not unborn like the Father of All. On the other hand, the Creator-God is the image of the Father and more powerful than the devil. Ptolemaeus also enumerates other positive features of the Creator-God: he hates evil and does not cause destruction. Those who attribute the origin of the world to the devil have not understood the providence of this god, Ptolemaeus argues.

Ptolemaeus also makes a quite extraordinary statement that, although Jesus abolished the inferior part of the Creator-God’s law, Jesus adapted his proclamation to what Ptolemaeus calls “the old opinion” (hairesis).

This view is based upon the observation that even Jesus accepted the biblical law involving vengeance: “God said: ‘The one who despises father or mother must certainly die’.” Quispel suggests that Ptolemaeus refers here to the Christ of the Creator-God, but this cannot be the case. Some Valentinian sources do indeed bear witness to the idea that the Creator-God created his own Christ, but this idea is incompatible with Ptolemaeus’s argument. For him, it is obviously the same Son who abolished the inferior part of the law who also accepted vengeance in this one particular case. It seems that Ptolemaeus found the argument based upon making concessions so persuasive that he employed it even in describing the Son of the supreme God. This opinion of the Son also creates an intriguing parallel between Ptolemaeus’s educational strategy and the Son’s teaching: the Son, too, adapts his teaching to the abilities of his audience.

Although Ptolemaeus regards the Creator-God as “the maker of the whole world,” he attributes the origin of all things to the ungenerated Father. This naturally raises the question of the relationship between the two deities and their roles in the creation. This issue, however, is not dealt with in the Letter to Flora. It may be that it was supposed to be discussed in the subsequent teaching Ptolemaeus promised to Flora at the end of his letter, but whether this next step was ever taken, and, if it was, what its contents were, is not known to us.

Background: Analogies to Ptolemaeus’s opinions about the law

Although Ptolemaeus underlines the importance of the Savior’s words as proofs for his argumentation, his interpretation about the biblical law was not only based upon them. Ptolemaeus was obviously aware of, and builds upon, other Jewish and Christian theories about the law. Those wanting to expose Ptolemaeus’s “hidden agenda” argue that his interpretation implies a more complicated Valentinian teaching about the Hebrew Bible.

Irenaeus relates that Ptolemaeus’s followers divided scripture into three parts: “one portion they hold was spoken by the mother, another by the off spring, and still another by the Creator-God.” In other words, the Hebrew Bible contains teachings of (1) the Wisdom outside the divine realm (the mother), (2) the spiritual beings (“the off spring”), and (3) “psychic” teaching stemming from the Creator-God. These Valentinians applied the same tripartite division even to the words of Jesus; the only difference was that the part stemming from the spiritual off spring in the Hebrew Bible is replaced by the prophecies stemming from the Savior.

Nevertheless, these Valentinian views do not offer any close parallels to what Ptolemaeus says in the Letter to Flora. For example, in his account of Valentinian views about the Hebrew Bible, Irenaeus says nothing about a theory of human additions to the law, which is of crucial importance to Ptolemaeus’s argument. In fact, Irenaeus does not mention any specific Valentinian theory about biblical law. Had Irenaeus known Ptolemaeus’s discussion about this issue, he would probably have written this part of his account in more detail. Thus the information provided by Irenaeus is far less useful in disclosing Ptolemaeus’s “hidden agenda” than scholars have assumed.

Closer analogies to Ptolemaeus’s teaching about the law can be found in other sources. Francis Fallon has pointed out that certain aspects in Ptolemaeus’s argumentation are very similar to that of Philo. Like Ptolemaeus, Philo divided the law into three parts. According to him, only some of the ordinances in biblical law stem directly from God. Another part of the law consists of God’s answers to Moses’s questions, and yet another part stems from Moses himself. Philo, however, did not use this tripartite division to separate the genuine divine legislation from human additions, as Ptolemaeus did. For Philo, the entire law is perfect; the reliability of the laws given by Moses is secured by his divine gift of foreknowledge.

In addition, both Philo and Ptolemaeus dissociate the supreme God from the punishments ordered in the Hebrew Bible. Philo held it as a special sign of God’s goodness that no punishments are mentioned in the decalogue. According to Philo, the good God cannot carry out punishments. Therefore, God assigned the task of punishing evildoers to inferior divine beings. Ptolemaeus’s distinction between the inferior god, who promulgated lex talionis, and the supreme god is based upon a similar premise: vengeance is not compatible with the goodness of the Father of All. Nevertheless, Ptolemaeus’s conclusion that there are two gods is clearly different from Philo’s distinction between the good God and punitive angels.

There are also close early Christian parallels to Ptolemaeus’s analysis of the law. Justin the Martyr, too, divided the law into three parts. According to him, one part of the law was given to ensure pious conduct, another part because of Christ, and yet another because of the hard-heartedness of the Jews. Both Justin and Ptolemaeus probably derived this argument directly from the gospel tradition. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy how eagerly each of them picked up an argument that helped develop a supersessionist Christian attitude toward the Jews. The discussion of the law was apparently part of the Christian boundary drawing against Judaism.

Further analogies strengthen the impression that Ptolemaeus was engaged in an intra-Christian debate regarding the origin of the law. The theory of human additions to the law occurs frequently in the Jewish-Christian Homilies secondarily attributed to Clement of Rome (thus the usual designation “pseudo-Clementine” for this text). This text states that the bibliacal law contains flaws because the way it was transmitted was defective. The Jewish tradition that “Moses delivered the law of God orally to seventy wise men” is sustained in this text. A critical moment, however, was when the oral law was written down. It was during that process that “some false pericopes intruded” into the law. This theory was an attempt to resolve some “scriptural chestnuts,” that is, passages in the Hebrew Bible that, for one reason or another, were discussed time and time again.

The author of the Homilies used this theory to explain away not only God’s ambiguous features in the Hebrew Bible, but also those of the righteous ones. It was inconceivable to this author that Adam was a transgressor, that Noah would have been drunken, that Abraham and Jacob were polygamists, or that Moses was a murderer and associated with an Egyptian priest. The negative features attached to these key figures of the Hebrew Bible were obviously a vexing problem that needed a radical remedy: if the Jewish Christians behind the pseudo-Clementine texts censored all aforementioned dubious features of the characters in the Hebrew Bible, they must have considered a really large number of passages of it as human additions.

In the Homilies, as in Ptolemaeus’s text, the distinction between better and worse parts of the law is based upon the words of Jesus: “And in saying: I am not come to destroy the law, and yet destroying something, he indicated that what will be destroyed had not belonged originally to the law.” Moreover, we find in the Homilies the same anti-Jewish sentiment as in Ptolemaeus and Justin: some laws were ordained by Moses because of the hard-heartedness of the Jews. In the Homilies , too, this claim is backed up with Jesus’s teaching on divorce (“Moses gave you commandments according to your hard-heartedness, for from the beginning it was not so”), as it was in Ptolemaeus’s treatise.

Ptolemaeus and the Homilies differ from each other in their assessments of what should be inferred from the belief that Christ abolished some parts of the law. In the Homilies , this is proof of the “false pericopes” in the law that needed to be abrogated. Ptolemaeus drew just the opposite conclusion: the fact that Christ needed to abolish some parts of the law shows the divine origin of these parts. In addition, Ptolemaeus’s attitude toward the human additions to the law seems more moderate than that in the Homilies. Ptolemaeus never repudiated these passages as “false pericopes” but instead voiced sympathy for Moses’s intentions behind these additions.

The fact that there were early Christians who wanted to remove ambiguous passages from the Hebrew Bible explains why Ptolemaeus felt it necessary to devote more attention to the issue of human additions than his own argument would have required. The Jewish-Christian position expounded in the Homilies is that all incongruities and offensive features in the Hebrew Bible are due to the corruption of the scripture caused by human additions.

In consequence, once these additions are removed, the remaining divine part of the law is perfect. Ptolemaeus obviously disagreed with this solution. Against this background, Ptolemaeus’s discussion of the traditions of the elders, which was otherwise not relevant to his case, becomes reasonable. By referring to the tradition of the elders, he took issue with one current theory he needed to counter to make his own case more compelling. Ptolemaeus admits that the theory of human additions does indeed explain some incongruities in the law but claims that this theory does not solve the whole problem. The divine law purified of human additions (those of Moses and those of the elders) still remains incongruous.

In sum, it seems that Ptolemaeus felt it necessary to be very specific as to what the theory of human additions explains and what it does not explain. This strategy indicates that the implied reader of his treatise was not a novice with little learning, but someone familiar with other Jewish and early Christian theories about biblical law and who expected Ptolemaeus to evaluate them.

Context: Ptolemaeus versus Marcion

In his edition of Ptolemaeus’s text, Quispel suggested that, when speaking of those who attribute the law to the devil, Ptolemaeus is referring to Marcion and his disciples. What makes this suggestion problematic is that Marcion did not ascribe the law or the creation of the world to the devil, but to the Creator-God. Marcion did not describe this god as “evil” (kakos), but only as “imperfect” or “wretched” (ponēros). Therefore, Quispel had to assume that “Ptolemaeus has expressed the opinion of the great heretic in a very inexact manner,” offering “an erroneous simplification . . . that Marcion regarded Yahweh as the origin of evil.”

Given that Ptolemaeus obviously knew the topic about which he is writing, this explanation does not seem very compelling. I am more inclined to agree with another position, also maintained by Quispel, that “Ptolemaeus more or less accepted Marcion’s conception.” A comparison between the views of Ptolemaeus and Marcion indicates that Ptolemaeus knew well Marcion’s teaching about the Creator-God and made use of it in his own argument.

(1) The distinction between a good god and a just god, employed by Ptolemaeus throughout his treatise, is a characteristic feature of Marcionite theology. This distinction can be traced to Cerdo, Marcion’s teacher, and it is also attributed to Marcion’s followers. Therefore, the suggestion that Marcion himself did not draw the distinction between “just” and “good” does not seem very probable. Nevertheless, while Ptolemaeus clearly distinguished between “just” and “evil,” Marcion and his followers made no clear distinction between these two qualities. For Marcion, the god of the Hebrew Bible was “the maker of bad things and evil,” and his followers argued that nature is evil since the just Creator-God created it from evil matter. In Hippolytus’s account of Marcionite theology, Marcion is recorded as having distinguished between a good god and an evil Creator-God.

(2) In accordance with Marcion, Ptolemaeus emphasized the negative aspect of the justice peculiar to the inferior god; this justice was “the justice of a judge.” Marcion distinguished between the God described in the Hebrew Bible, who judges, and the other god proclaimed by Jesus, who saves. Marcion, however, was much more outspoken than Ptolemaeus in describing the negative connotations inherent in the analogy between a judge and the Creator-God. Marcion portrayed the Creator-God as “a judge, fierce and warlike,” opposed to the superior God who is “mild and peaceable, solely kind and supremely good.”

(3) Like Ptolemaeus, Marcion emphasized that the god in the Hebrew Bible often contradicts himself.

(4) Ptolemaeus’s interpretive method is similar to Marcion’s. In a semblance of what Marcion did in his Antitheses, Ptolemaeus contrasts Jesus’ teaching with the law in the Hebrew Bible. The first instance of this manner of argumentation is Ptolemaeus’s discussion of divorce, allowed by Moses but prohibited by God. Marcion used the same argument to show how the Hebrew Bible and Christ’s proclamation contradict each other. The second example is Ptolemaeus’s way of pitting the lex talionis in the Hebrew Bible and Jesus’s teaching that one should not resist evil against each other, something which we also find attested for Marcion.

(5) Despite emphasizing the contradiction between biblical law and the teaching of Jesus, neither Marcion nor Ptolemaeus denounced the law altogether. For Marcion, the law of the Creator-God was neither good nor evil, but just. Like Ptolemaeus, Marcion seems to have accepted the ethical value of the law as preventing evil and sin, though Marcion denied the law’s religious value. This theory accounts for the fact that, in his radically abridged edition of Paul’s letters, Marcion left some positive statements about the biblical law untouched. One of these statements was Romans 7:12 (NRSV: “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good”), which Ptolemaeus quotes as testifying to the pure part of the divine legislation.

Although Ptolemaeus makes use of a number of distinctly Marcionite arguments, he does not simply reproduce Marcion’s theology; he draws a theological profile of his own. Much of what Ptolemaeus says makes him look like a moderate Marcionite.  He obviously found some important elements of Marcion’s theology, such as the distinction between a good god and a just god, useful for his own position, but his other comments show that he avoids the most radical aspects of Marcion’s teaching. It was already pointed out that Ptolemaeus expressed the idea of the Creator-God as a judge in less negative terms than Marcion. In addition, Ptolemaeus’s use of scripture shows that he did not accept the Marcionite canon, which included only an abridged version of the Gospel of Luke and a number of Paul’s letters.

In referring to the words of the Savior, Ptolemaeus regularly [aligns with] the Gospel of Matthew. Ptolemaeus also refers to [tropes in] Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians, which was not included in Marcion’s canon. While Marcion only saw evidence for the Creator-God’s thirst for blood in the ritual laws of the Hebrew Bible, Ptolemaeus interpreted them spiritually, as instruction in the Christian way of life. Moderation in comparison to Marcion’s teachings also becomes visible in Ptolemaeus’s discussion about marriage and divorce, which in no way indicates that he regarded marriage itself as impure, as Marcion is said to have done.

If viewed from the doctrinal mode of explanation, this all seems as if Ptolemaeus tried to swing the pendulum back from Marcion’s radical views to a more conventional Christian position. However, what probably was more significant in the historical context was Ptolemaeus’s ability to demonstrate to his addressee that he had a position of his own in the middle of early Christian views about the Hebrew Bible and that he was capable of arguing persuasively for this particular position.


Ismo Dunderberg, Beyond Gnosticism , pp.83-89

[MrMacSon]

The Addressee: a Noblewoman in Rome?

Scholars usually say that Flora, the addressee of Ptolemaeus’s text, is “possibly...a member of the catholic church” who found its doctrine somewhat unsatisfactory, “is a female adherent of ordinary Christianity,” or is simply designated as “a church Christian.”

However, these designations are problematic for several reasons. First, as I mentioned above, they recycle ancient prejudices against Valentinians hiding their “true” teaching from outsiders. Second, while it is clear that Ptolemaeus’s text was written for a novice needing further instruction, it is not clear that this text is “exoteric,” that is, intended for outsiders. At the beginning of the text, Ptolemaeus addresses Flora as “my honorable sister” ( adelphē mou kalē Phlōra ). The same designation is repeated in the closure of the text ( “my sister Flora,” ō adelphē mou Phlōra ).

The way Ptolemaeus addresses Flora shows that he approaches her as a member of an in-group. He employs fictive sibling terminology, which was used to express membership in different kinds of associations throughout the Roman Empire, from mysteries to guilds of athletes. Members of such groups often called each other “brothers” and “sisters.” Another form of familial language employed in the associations was paternal language: the leaders or benefactors of these groups were often called “mothers” and “fathers.” The fact that Ptolemaeus prefers sibling terminology to parent-child language shows that he approaches Flora as a fellow initiate rather than from the stance of the leader of the group to which she belongs.

Another noteworthy element in the opening of Ptolemaeus’s text is the designation “honorable” ( kalē ). I find it unlikely that Ptolemaeus wanted to say “my beautiful Flora,” although the adjective could be understood in this sense. The adjective kalos is used to mean “noble” and “honorable” both in a moral sense and, as a status indicator, for those of higher rank.

This brings us to the evidence in Justin, which possibly relates to Ptolemaeus. In his Second Apology, Justin mentions an early Christian called Ptolemaeus, who was the teacher of a Roman woman. After her conversion to Christianity, she left her husband because of his debauchery. The husband first filed a complaint against her, and when this proved unsuccessful, he then denounced Ptolemaeus, who was arrested and finally executed because he confessed to being a Christian. Justin describes this Ptolemaeus as “a lover of truth,” who with his martyrdom proved to be a “true Christian.”

It cannot be said with certainty whether the Ptolemaeus described by Justin is identical with the Valentinian Ptolemaeus. The fact that Justin condemned Valentinians in his later work Dialogue with Trypho seems to speak against this identification. On the positive side, however, Justin’s description of Ptolemaeus the martyr corresponds to the evidence offered by Ptolemaeus’s Letter to Flora. Justin’s Ptolemaeus was a teacher of a female convert to Christianity who was faced with the difficult decision of whether to divorce her husband or not. The Valentinian Ptolemaeus, in turn, wrote a letter of instruction, which was addressed to a woman and in which biblical legislation on divorce was given significant prominence by being singled out as an example of how human traditions are mixed with divine commands in the law. Ptolemaeus argued that even though divorce is not permitted by God, it is in certain conditions a better choice than staying together. This argument fits well the situation described in Justin and supports the possibility that the two Ptolemaeuses were the same person. In addition, the Valentinian Ptolemaeus dwelled on the issue of how vengeance increases evil. This part of his argument would have a much more concrete background if he was the teacher of the noblewoman whose former husband was seeking revenge.

If the two Ptolemaeuses were identical, however, it must be assumed either that when writing his 2 Apology Justin did not yet know what Valentinians exactly taught (but learned about this only later) or that Justin did not associate this Ptolemaeus with the school of Valentinus. There is also a third possibility: in his 2 Apology, Justin avoided mentioning Christian factions, since in this text, addressed to the emperor, he no doubt wanted to construct as unified a picture of Christianity as possible, and a reference to Christian groups in rivalry with each other would have damaged that impression.

In addition, even if Justin did not agree with Ptolemaeus’s theology, there could have been other reasons that might have caused Justin to include a reference to Ptolemaeus’s case in 2 Apology. First, the woman involved in this case made a successful petition to the emperor against the complaint issued by her husband. This detail is directly related to the purpose of Justin’s text: if the emperor accepted that woman’s petition, he should also accept Justin’s apology for Christians. Second, Ptolemaeus’s unwavering refusal to retract his confession to being a Christian and his martyrdom were undeniable signs of bravery of which even outsiders, the emperor included, could approve. Thus, regardless of his opinions, which Justin would certainly not have accepted, Ptolemaeus’s behavior could be used as an example. In consequence, it seems to me that there are good grounds for assuming that the Ptolemaeus mentioned by Justin is identical with the Valentinian Ptolemaeus, and Justin’s later condemnation of Valentinians does not necessarily disprove this identification.

Given the similarities between the situation described by Justin and that implied in Ptolemaeus’s letter, it is also possible that the woman mentioned by Justin was identical with Flora. This identification, although hypothetical, should be kept in mind in interpreting Ptolemaeus’s text. The Roman woman described by Justin was doubtless a member of the upper class, since she addressed her petition directly to the emperor and he granted it. Her former husband also had powerful connections: he was a friend of, and exercised influence on, the centurion who arrested and interrogated the woman’s Christian teacher. This information corresponds with Ptolemaeus’s addressing Flora as “noble” or “honorable.”

The scenario described above stands in contrast to the simplistic and chauvinistic reading of Ptolemaeus’s treatise as an attempt by a deceitful Gnostic teacher to seduce into heresy an orthodox—but perhaps a bit bored or dissatisfied?—female Christian of little learning.

The actual power relationship between Ptolemaeus and Flora may have been just the opposite: with his treatise, Ptolemaeus may have sought to convince his powerful female benefactor of his theological learning as well as of his argumentative and compositional proficiency. In the light of Justin’s account, it is possible to assume that Ptolemaeus was Flora’s private teacher, whose task was to instruct her in Christian beliefs. Given that patronage was often a prerequisite for the production of texts in antiquity, it is even possible that she commissioned Ptolemaeus to write the introductory study on the Creator-God we now know as his Letter to Flora.

Although none of these hypotheses can be proven with absolute certainty, they are within the range of historically plausible options. In fact, all these options exist regardless of whether the Ptolemaeus mentioned by Justin was or was not identical with the Valentinian Ptolemaeus; Justin’s account only enables us to see these options with greater clarity.

Conclusion

In my reading of Ptolemaeus’s Letter to Flora, I have deliberately tried to avoid a doctrinal mode of explanation, which has been characteristic of most previous interpretations of this text, and to position Ptolemaeus more adequately within the context of ancient schools of thought. The doctrinal mode, which goes hand in hand with the rhetorics of orthodoxy and heresy, has been mainly concerned with identifying Ptolemaeus’s theological position, which is then portrayed as representing the “Gnostic” stance (vis-à-vis the orthodox view). In this approach, Ptolemaeus’s nuanced discussion about the law in the Hebrew Bible is understood as an attempt to create a doctrinal balance between Christian orthodoxy and Valentinian heresy.

The doctrinal explanation becomes most clearly visible in Quispel’s claim that Ptolemaeus’s treatise was inspired “by the critique of the orthodox” levelled against “the audacious theories of Valentinus.” Quispel also stated that in Ptolemaeus’s treatise “the entire [Valentinian] system has been remodelled with the intention, it seems, of making it more like the doctrine of the church.” Ptolemaeus’s moral instruction, which “does not seem to differ from the view of the Catholic authors,” shows, for Quispel, that “Ptolemaeus is capable of appreciating orthodox opinions and expressing himself in their language.”

Following this line of interpretation, Ptolemaeus’s moral instruction is not really his own, but something adopted from the orthodox side. Although Quispel emphasized that Ptolemaeus is sincere in his treatise, he also maintained that Ptolemaeus deliberately expressed himself unclearly, in a manner that an ordinary Christian could not correctly understand. Finally, the discourse of orthodoxy and heresy is operative in the interpretation that Ptolemaeus composed his didactic letter to entangle orthodox Christians in his coils and planned to reveal his Gnostic teachings to them only later.

In my view, the use of the discourse of orthodoxy and heresy, or that of “ordinary” and “non-ordinary” Christians, in interpreting Ptolemaeus’s Letter to Flora has not only been unfruitful but also misleading. One of its most alarming consequences is that Ptolemaeus’s moral exhortation becomes downgraded to lip service paid to the ethical norms of orthodox Christianity. The discourse of orthodoxy and heresy behind the doctrinal explanation also fails to explain Ptolemaeus’s affinities with Marcionite theology. Marcion was one of the few people, or perhaps the only one, who was actually expelled from the Roman Christian community in the second century. Thus, if Ptolemaeus’s purpose was to win over converts from among “ordinary Christians”—whatever that designation might have meant in the context of second-century Rome—his flirting with the Marcionite position would have been the worst imaginable strategy.

While I do not see Ptolemaeus’s treatise as a statement in the battle between orthodoxy and heresy, the text clearly implies a competitive situation among early Christian groups. In order to be persuasive, Ptolemaeus needed to counter certain arguments that we now know from Jewish-Christian sources, even if they were not integral parts of his own argumentation. It is also clear that Ptolemaeus responded to Marcion’s views; some of them he rejected, some of them he accepted. Nevertheless, I no longer see this response as an attempt to swing the pendulum back from Marcion toward the “orthodox” position. Rather, the affinities with, and the differences from, Marcion’s views in Ptolemaeus’s treatise suggest that it was written for the purpose of differentiation. Ptolemaeus needed to show to his addressee that he was capable of developing a position of his own, one different from Marcion’s and from the position that, in subsequent centuries, became established as the orthodox view.

In my reading, Flora is no restless orthodox Christian woman seeking fancy new ideas from heterodox teachers either. In fact, it is entirely possible that she was Ptolemaeus’s benefactor and employer. Ptolemaeus’s approach to the problem discussed in his treatise implies that she (and her circle?) already knew the most important Christian, and possibly Jewish, positions of the biblical law and expected from Ptolemaeus a well-argued response to them.

This reading, in which Ptolemaeus is seen in conversation with his audience, rather than as an untrustworthy Gnostic teacher trying to tempt a naïve woman into heresy, helps to explain why Ptolemaeus did not restrict himself to a discussion about an issue that belongs to the realm of myth or theology (the existence of the Creator-God) but included a number of comments related to Christian lifestyle: he not only discussed divorce and nonretaliation as part of his argument, but also gave moral instruction related to koinōnia, fasting, and good deeds, and recommended avoidance of wicked acts, anger, lust, and the taking of oaths. In my reading, these references should not be understood as concessions to orthodoxy. Instead, they bear witness to the educational approach common to all ancient schools of thought: theoretical reflection and practical instruction were considered inseparable. Since this approach was well known in antiquity, ethical instruction was something that could be expected from a Christian teacher like Ptolemaeus. Had he not taken up any issues related to lifestyle in his Letter to Flora, his original audience would probably have been disappointed and his treatise would not have been as successful as it was.

[ end of that chapter, Chapter 5 ]

[MrMacSon]

Letter to Flora, in The Gnostic Scriptures, 2nd edition, edited by David Brakke, & Bentley Layton, Yale University Press, 2021.

the Text (without Layton's & Brakke's added headings & subheadings, obviously)	Aligning texts
33.3.1 The law established by Moses, my dear sister Flora, has in the past been misunderstood by many people, for they were not closely acquainted with the one who established it or with its commandments. I think you will see this at once if you study their discordant opinions on this topic.	IrPt 1.7.3
33.3.2 For some say that this law has been ordained by god the parent/father; while others, following the opposite course, stoutly contend that it has been established by the adversary, the pernicious devil; and so the latter school attributes the craftsmanship of the world to the devil [Ialdabaōth], saying that he is “the father and maker of the universe.”	. Plato Timaeus 28e
33.3.3 <But> they are <utterly> in error, they disagree with one another, and each of the schools utterly misses the truth of the matter
33.3.4 Now, it does not seem that the law was established by the perfect god and father: for, it must be of the same character as its giver; and yet it is imperfect and needful of being fulfilled by another and contains commandments incongruous with the nature and intentions of such a god
33.3.5 On the other hand to attribute a law that abolishes injustice to the injustice of The Adversary is the false logic of those who do not comprehend the principle of which the savior spoke. For our savior declared that a house or city divided against itself will not be able to stand.	. Mark 3:25 Matt 12:25
33.3.6 And, further, the apostle [John] states that the craftsmanship of the world is his, and that “all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made,” thus anticipating these liars’ flimsy wisdom. And the craftsmanship is that of a god who is just and hates evil, not a pernicious one as believed by these thoughtless people/people without providence, who take no account of the craftsman’s forethought and so are blind not only in the eye of the soul but even in the eyes of the body.	. . IrPt 1.8.5 Jn 1:3
33.3.7 Now, from what has been said it should be clear to you (sing.) that these (schools of thought) utterly miss the truth, though each does so in its own particular way : one (school) by not being acquainted with the god of righteousness [cf. 33.7.5], the other by not being acquainted with the Father of the Entirety, who was manifested by him alone who came and who alone knew him.	. Matt 11:27
33.3.8 It remains for us, who have been deemed worthy of <acquaintance> with both, to show you (sing.) exactly what sort of law The Law is, and which legislator established it. We shall offer proofs of what we say by drawing from our savior’s words, by which alone it is possible to reach a certain apprehension of the reality of the matter without stumbling.
33.4.1 Now, first you must learn that, as a whole, the law contained in the Pentateuch of Moses was not established by a single author, I mean not by god alone: rather, there are certain of its commandments that were established by human beings as well. Indeed, our savior’s words teach us that the Pentateuch divides into three parts. 33.4.2 For one division belongs to god himself and his legislations; while <another division> belongs to Moses—indeed, Moses ordained certain of the commandments not as god himself ordained through him, rather based upon his own thoughts about the matter; and yet a third division belongs to the elders of the people, <who> likewise in the beginning must have inserted certain of their own commandments. 33.4.3 You will now learn how all this can be demonstrated from the savior’s words
33.4.4 When the savior was talking with those who were arguing with him about divorce—and it has been ordained (in the law) that divorce is permitted—he said to them: “For your (pl.) hardness of heart Moses allowed divorce of one’s wife. Now, from the beginning it was not so.” For god, he says, has joined together this union, and “what the lord has joined together, let no man put asunder.”	. Matt 19:8 Matt 19:6
33.4.5 Here he shows that <the> law of god is one thing, forbidding a woman to be put asunder from her husband; while the law of Moses is another, permitting the couple to be put asunder because of hard-heartedness.	Deut 24:1 Matt 19:7
33.4.6 And so, accordingly, Moses ordains contrary to what god ordains; for <separating> is contrary to not separating. .. Yet if we also scrutinize Moses’ intentions with which he ordained this commandment, we find that he created the commandment not of his own inclination but of necessity because of the weakness of those to whom it was ordained. 33.4.7 For the latter were not able to put into practice god’s intentions, in the matter of their not being permitted to divorce their wives. Some of them were on very bad terms with their wives, and ran the risk of being further diverted into injustice and from there into their destruction. 33.4.8 Moses, wishing to excise this unpleasant element through which they also ran the risk of being destroyed, ordained for them of his own accord a second law, the law of divorce, choosing under the circumstances the lesser of two evils, as it were, 33.4.9 so that if they were unable to keep the former (that is, god’s law) they could keep at least the latter and so not be diverted into injustice and evil, through which utter destruction would follow in consequence. 33.4.10 These are Moses’ intentions, with which we find him ordaining laws contrary to those of god. At any rate, even if we have for the moment used only one example in our proof, it is beyond doubt that, as we have shown, this law is of Moses himself and is distinct from god’s.
. 33.4.11 And the savior shows also that there are some traditions of the elders interwoven in the law. He says, “For god spoke: ‘Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you.’ .	. Exodus.20:12 Deut.5:16 Matt 15:4
33.4.12 But you have declared,” the savior says, addressing the elders, “‘What you would have gained from me is given to god.’ And for the sake of your tradition, O ancients, you have made void the law of god.”	Mark 7:11 [Matt 15:5]
33.4.13 And Isaiah declared this by saying, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.”/td]	Isa 29:13 Matt 15:7-9
33.4.14 Thus it has been clearly shown from these passages that, as a whole, the law is divided into three parts. For we have found in it legislations belonging to Moses himself, to the elders, and to god himself. Moreover, the analysis of the law as a whole, as we have divided it here, has made clear which part of it is genuine.
. 33.5.1 Now, what is more, the one part that is the law of god himself divides into three subdivisions. The first subdivision is the pure legislation not interwoven with evil, which alone is properly called law, and which the savior did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For what he fulfilled was not alien to him, <but stood in need of fulfilment>: for it did not have perfection. And the second subdivision is the part interwoven with the inferior and with injustice, which the savior abolished as being incongruous with his own nature. 33.5.2 Finally, the third subdivision is the symbolic and allegorical* part, which is after the image of the superior, spiritual realm: the savior changed (the referent of) this part from the perceptible, visible level to the spiritual, invisible one.	. . Matt 5:17 . . * [or] prefigurative
33.5.3 The first, the law of god that is pure and not interwoven with the inferior, is the decalogue or Ten Commandments inscribed on two stone tablets; they divide into the prohibition of things that must be avoided and the commanding of things that must be done. Although they contain pure legislation they do not have perfection, and so they were in need of fulfilment/completion by the savior.	33.6.1 Exodus 20.3 Exodus 34:1 .
33.5.4 The second, which is interwoven with injustice, is that which applies to retaliation and repayment of those who have already committed a wrong, commanding us to pluck out an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and to retaliate for murder with murder. This part is interwoven with injustice, for the one who is second to act unjustly still acts unjustly, differing only in the relative order in which he acts, and committing the very same act.	Lev 24:20-1 Lev 24:17 Matt 5:8 33.6.2
33.5.5 But otherwise, this commandment both was and is just, having been established as a deviation from the pure law because of the weakness of those to whom it was ordained; yet it is incongruous with the nature and goodness of the father of the entirety.
33.5.6 Now perhaps this was apt; but even more, it was a result of necessity. For when one who does not wish even a single murder to occur—by saying, “You shall not kill” —when, I say, he ordains a second law and commands the murderer to be murdered, acting as judge between two murders, he who forbade even a single murder has without realizing it been cheated by necessity.	. Ex 20:13, Ex 21:12, Lev 24:17
33.5.7 For this reason, then, the son who was sent from him abolished this part of the law, though he admits that it too belonged to god: this part is reckoned as belonging to the old school of thought, both where he says, “For god spoke: ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him surely die’” and elsewhere.	. Matt 15:4 33.4h
33.5.8 And the third subdivision of god’s law is the symbolic part, which is after the image of the superior, spiritual realm: I mean, what is ordained about offerings, circumcision, the Sabbath, fasting, Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the like.
33.5.9 Now, once the truth [ie. the saviour and his teachings] had been manifested, the referent of all these ordinances was changed, inasmuch as they are images and allegories. As to their meaning in the visible realm and their physical/literal accomplishment they were abolished; but as to their spiritual meaning they were elevated, with the words remaining the same but the subject matter being altered.
33.5.10 For the savior commanded us to offer offerings, but not dumb beasts or incense: rather, spiritual praises and glorifications and prayers of thanksgiving, and offerings in the form of sharing and good deeds.
33.5.11 And he wishes us to perform circumcision, but not circumcision of the bodily foreskin, rather of the spiritual heart;	Gos.Thomas 53 Rom 2:29
33.5.12 and to keep the Sabbath, for he wants us to be inactive in wicked acts;	Gos.Thomas 27
33.5.13 and to fast, though he does not wish us to perform physical fasts, rather spiritual ones, which consist of abstinence from all bad deeds. ... Nevertheless, fasting as to the visible realm is observed by our adherents, since fasting, if practiced with reason, can contribute something to the soul, so long as it does not take place in imitation of other people or by habit or because fasting has been prescribed n a particular day.	Gos. Thomas 6 Gos. Thomas 14
33.5.14 Likewise, it is observed in memory of true fasting, so that those who are not yet able to observe true fasting might have a remembrance of it from fasting according to the visible realm.
33.5.15 Likewise, the apostle Paul makes it clear that Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were images, for he says that “Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” and, he says, be without leaven, having no share in leaven—now, by “leaven” he means evil—but rather “be fresh dough.”	. 1 Cor 5:7
33.6.1 And so it can be granted that the actual law of god is subdivided into three parts. The first subdivision is the part that was fulfilled by the savior: for “you shall not kill,” “you shall not commit adultery,” “you shall not swear falsely” are subsumed under not being angry, not looking lustfully at another, and not swearing at all.	Ex.20:13/Matt.5:21; Ex 20:14/Matt 5:27; Lev 19:12/Matt 5:33c
33.6.2 The second subdivision is the part that was completely abolished. For the commandment of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”,a which is interwoven with injustice and itself involves an act of injustice, was abolished by the savior with injunctions to the contrary,	a Exod.21:24 + Lev.24:20.+.Deut.19:21 + Matt.5:38. ~33.5.4
33.6.3 and of two contraries one must “abolish” the other: “For I say to you (pl.), Do not in any way resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you (sing.), turn to him the other cheek also.”	Matt 5:39
33.6.4 And the third subdivision is the part whose referent was changed and which was altered from the physical/literal to the spiritual— the allegorical* part, which is ordained after the image of the superior realm.	. * prefigurative
33.6.5 Now, the images and allegories/figures are indicative of other matters, and they were well and good while truth was not present. But now that truth is present, one must do the works of truth and not those of its imagery.	Mk 2:19 par Gos. Thomas 104
33.6.6 His disciples made these teachings known, and so did the apostle Paul:g he makes known to us the part consisting of images, through the passage on the paschal lamb and the unleavened bread, which we have already spoken of [33.5.15]. The part consisting of a law interwoven with injustice, he made known by speaking of “abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances”; and the part not interwoven with the inferior, when he says, “The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.” g Valentinians considered Paul to be the ultimate source of their esoteric tradition, cf. PPl.	Prayer of the Apostle Paul (PPl) Eph 2:15 Rom 7:12
. 33.7.1 Thus I think I have shown you, as well as possible in a brief treatment, both that there is human legislation which has been slipped into the law and that the law of god himself divides into three subdivisions. 33.7.2 Now it remains for us to say what sort of being this god is, who established the law. But this too I believe I have demonstrated to you (sing.) in what I have already said, providing you have followed carefully. 33.7.3 For since this division of the law (that is, god’s own law) was established neither by the perfect god, as we have taught, nor surely by the devil—which it would be wrong to say—then the establisher of this division of the law is distinct from them. 33.7.4 And he is the craftsman and maker of the universe or world and of the things within it. Since he is different from the essences of the other two <and> (rather) is in a state intermediate between them, he would rightfully be described by the term intermediateness. [He will eventually become the god of the “midpoint,” according to IrPt 1.7.1 (“Final repose of the just”)] .
33.7.5 And if the perfect god is good according to his nature—as indeed he is, for our savior showed that “one only is there who is good,” namely his father whom he manifested—and if furthermore the law belonging to the nature of the adversary is both evil and wicked and is stamped in the mold of injustice, then a being that is in a state inter mediate between these and is neither good, nor evil or unjust, might well be properly called just, being a judge of the justice/righteousness that is his.	. Matt 19:17 VFrH/2 Vö
33.7.6 And on the one hand this god must be inferior to the perfect god and less than his righteousness precisely because he is engendered and not unengendered—for “there is one unengendered father, from whom are all things,” or more exactly, from whom all things depend; and on the other hand, he must have come into being as better and more authoritative than the adversary; and must be born of an essence and nature distinct from the essences of the other two.	. ~1 Cor 8:6
. 33.7.7 For the essence of the adversary is both corruption and darkness, for the adversary is material and divided into many parts; while the essence of the unengendered father of the entirety is both incorruptibility and self-existent light,e being simple and unique. And the essence of this intermediate produced a twofold capacity,f for he is an image of the better god. .	. TriTrac 106:14; e ApocJn 4:9f f cf. IrPt 1.5.1 ‘animate.essence’
33.7.8 And now, given that the good by nature engenders and produces the things that are similar to itself and of the same essence, do not be bewildered as to how these natures—that of corruption and <that> of intermediateness—which have come to be different in essence, arose from a single first principle of the entirety, a principle that exists and is confessed and believed in by us, and which is un engendered and incorruptible and good	. IrPt 1.5.4
33.7.9 For, god permitting, you will next learn about both the first principle and the generation of these two other gods, if/since you are deemed worthy of the apostolic tradition,k which even we/we too have received by succession; and along with this you will learn how to test all the propositions by means of our savior’s teaching k The esoteric tradition that Valentinians believed had been established by St. Paul, transmitted by him to a certain Theudas, thence to Valentinus, and finally to his successors like Ptolemy.	to Rheginus 49:37 Gos. Philip 83
33.7.10 I have not failed, my sister Flora, to state these matters to you briefly. And what I have just written is a concise account, though I have treated the subject adequately. In the future these teachings will be of the greatest help to you—at least if, like good rich soil that has received fertile seeds,* you bear fruit. * cf. IrPt 1.7.5, “The spiritual (elements), which down to this day Achamōth has continued to sow into just souls, learn here; are nourished, for they are sent as infants; later are deemed worthy of maturity; and are given as brides to the angels of the savior.”	. Mark 4:20 par

IrPt = Irenaeus on Ptolemy in Adv Haers
TriTrac - the Tripartite Tractate
VFrH/2 Vö = Valentinian Fragment #2

[Secret Alias]

The problem with assigning or identifying Marcion with the extreme antinomian position here is the consistency of the association of the 'just power/merciful power' with Marcion in Fathers dating back to Irenaeus.