Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

This article argues that there is insufficient evidence to conclude (1) that a or the “gnostic heresy” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.11.1) referred to a specific social group whose theology is witnessed in Against Heresies 1.29; and (2) that the aeonology in this passage influenced Valentinus. There is no evidence that the aeonology in Against Heresies 1.29 existed prior to 160 CE, the approximate date of Valentinus’s demise; thus this material could not have shaped Valentinus’s theology. Instead of thinking with Irenaeus in terms of unidirectional influence (Irenaeus’s constructed “gnostic heresy” inspiring Valentinus/Valentinians), future theories ought to account for multiple directions of influence and entanglement [among] various early Christian theologians in the late second century CE.

ὁ μὲν γὰρ πρῶτος ἀπὸ τῆς λεγομένης γνωστικῆς αἱρέσεως τὰς ἀρχὰς εἰς ἴδιον χαρακτῆρα διδασκαλείου μεθαρμόσας, Ὀυαλεντῖνος, ἐξεφόρησεν.

For Valentinus first, having adapted the principles from the so-called gnostic heresy to the peculiar character of his school, brought out (what follows).

The Latin translation is somewhat different.

qui enim est primus ab ea quae dicitur gnostica haeresis antiquas in suum characterem doctrinas transferens, Valentinus, sic definivit.

For Valentinus was the first to carry over the old doctrines of the heresy called gnostic into his own style and sketched (them) as follows.

.It is probably better...to take τῆς λεγομένης γνωστικῆς αἱρέσεως with τὰς ἀρχὰς.

Although it could be middle [voice], the participle λεγομένη is most likely passive. Accordingly, the adjective “gnostic” is probably an outsider term, not a self-designation of a particular group. Here we can contrast the active verb in reference to Marcellinians in A.H. 1.25.6: “they call themselves gnostics” (gnosticos se autem vocant) [Lance Jenott (personal communication)].

The phrase “gnostic heresy”(γωνστική αἵρεσις) seems to have been Irenaeus’s own coinage. No Christian group after Justin Martyr would likely refer to themselves as a αἵρεσις. Accordingly, αἵρεσις should not be translated as “school” or “school of thought,” as if Irenaeus employed it as a neutral term. In the immediate context, Irenaeus used a different word to refer to a school, namely διδασκαλεῖον. Reportedly, Valentinus had a “school,” but he borrowed from the gnostic “heresy.”

Irenaeus’s use of τὰς ἀρχὰς is important, since it shows that 'the dependence' of Valentinus on “the gnostic heresy” was an appeal to principles, not the plagiarism of words or phrases. The aorist participle μεθαρμόσας confirms this point ...

Irenaeus was prepared to recognize the distinctiveness of the Valentinian movement, but he was not prepared to call it a Christian assembly (ἐκκλήσια). He wanted to make it seem like a non-Christian institution.
.

.5 . Aeonology

... Part of Irenaeus’s posited conceptual similarity between A.H. 1.11 and 1.29 had to do with theories of aeonic proliferation (or aeonology). As is well known, Irenaeus made the Valentinians famous for their aeonology. It was an aspect of their thought that he considered foreign and unbiblical. One suspects that when he was collecting the literature of his opponents, he was looking in particular for discordant aeonologies to emphasize Valentinian διαφώνια.

Yet Irenaeus had a problem. He wanted to connect Valentinus with Simon, the claimed founder of the gnostic heresy. When Irenaeus dealt with the material that he inherited from Justin’s Syntagma, however, he did not find a robust aeonology. Irenaeus claimed that Tatian developed an aeonology like the Valentinians, but Irenaeus knew that Tatian came after Valentinus. All that Irenaeus could find in the Syntagma was Simon of Samaria as “Father” and Helen of Tyre as “Thought,” along with the proliferation of “powers and angels.” The powers and angels, however, were not the paired and named aeons characteristic of Valentinian lore. The only named aeons appear in the Basilides report – a string of six beings (Father, Nous, Logos, Phronesis, Sophia, and Dynamis) who are not paired and seem to produce the next aeon “asexually.” This story is not very much like to the numerically-defined 8-10-12 pattern of paired aeons who give birth by coupling in Valentinian lore.

Thus, by the time Irenaeus had finished copying (and updating) Justin’s Syntagma (A.H. 1.23–28), he still did not have a strong parallel showing the dependence of Valentinus’s “school” on “the gnostic heresy” fathered by Simon. This is why the material in A.H. 1.29 proved important to Irenaeus. For A.H. 1.29 presented a robust theory of aeonology. Here Irenaeus found aeons with similar names as the Valentinian aeons – names like Nous, Ennoia, Logos, Zoe, and Aletheia. These aeons were grouped, moreover, in syzygies. Not all the pairs and names were identical, of course (there is no Valentinian Barbelo or Autogenes, for instance), but the structural similarities were enough for Irenaeus to draw a genetic connection between the material in A.H. 1.29 and Valentinian aeonology.

In short, the aeonology in A.H. 1.29 became the proposed source for the Valentinian aeonology in A.H. 1.11.67.
.

.8 . Ap. John and Gos. Judas

I now turn to the Apocryphon of John. As is well known, the material in A.H. 1.29.1–4 overlaps with a section in the Apocryphon, and some would date the (short recension of the) Apocryphon as early as 150 CE. This dating, however, is too early to allow for the combination of the Barbeloite aeonology (as in A.H. 1.29) with the paradise narrative in A.H. 1.30, both of which were later “Sethianized” by the inclusion of a heavenly Seth. This interweaving of distinct mythologies, as we see in surviving versions of Ap. John, probably occurred in the early third century CE ...

I agree with the ...careful conclusion of Frederick Wisse and Michael Waldstein that Irenaeus likely did not have what we call Ap. John in his possession, but a document “which was the apparent source of the first part of the main revelation discourse” in Ap. John. Ap. John as we have it possesses a dialogic frame narrative introducing the risen Jesus to the apostle John. Irenaeus showed no knowledge of this frame narrative or the salvation history section of Ap. John. Even his presentation of the unnameable Father in AH 1.29 lacks the negative theology and Neopythagorean terminology (e.g., “monad”) we find in Ap. John.

If Irenaeus had a version of the extant Ap. John, he would likely have mentioned it, since attribution of such material to the apostle John stood in tension with his depiction of John (e.g., A.H. 3.11.9). When Irenaeus had an apostolic book title, such as the Gospel of Judas, he mentioned it.

One can deduce, then, that Irenaeus did not have what we call Ap. John, only an early version of an aeonology that was redacted into Ap. John. If the negative theological source common to Allogenes and Ap. John was redacted into the Apocryphon in the early third century, this was probably the time when the Apocryphon as a whole took its present form.

The Gospel of Judas (Gos. Judas), however, did likely predate Irenaeus, even if not in the form it exists today. There is an aeonology in Gos. Judas. Most of the aeonic beings (like Autogenes and El[eleth]) are called angelic or divine. The aeonology in the Gospel of Judas contains no syzygies. The aeonology section mentions no female aeons although Barbelo is referred to earlier in the text. The luminaries, moreover, are not named. There is no rupture effected by Sophia to produce the cosmos, and no single demiurge. Instead, we have two angelic beings named Nebro (aka Yaldabaoth) and Saklas.

If Irenaeus did have access to this text – as opposed to a summary of it – he would have struggled to find conceptual parallels with Ptolemean aeonology (syzygies in the 8-10-12 pattern). This is the same pattern of aeonology attributed to Valentinus in AH 1.11.1. Most scholars concur (as I do) that AH 1.11.1 is not actually from Valentinus. Thus the aeonology in Gos. Judas is not an objection to dating the material in AH 1.29 to 165–180 CE.

In fact, A.H. 1.29 gives every indication of being a more thoroughly Christian reworking of the aeonology in Gos. Judas. Gos. Judas presents Autogenes as the god of light immediately below the primal aeon (the Invisible Spirit).

AH 1.29, however, has Christ the anointed Light effectively take over the position of Autogenes, who is demoted to become the offspring of the pair Logos and Ennoia. AH 1.29.3 also introduces a trinity of Father-Mother-Son. No explicitly trinitarian structure exists in Gos. Judas.

Finally, the four angels/luminaries mentioned in Gos. Judas all receive names and named partners in AH 1.29. (In fact, the insistence on an Ogdoad of named pairs in AH 1.29 might indicate influence from the better-known Ogdoad of Ptolemean aeonology as revealed in AH 1.1.1). Accordingly, if we date the aeonology of Gos. Judas between 150–165 CE, one would plausibly date the aeonology in AH 1.29 somewhat later, between 165–180 CE.

One final indication of later date for the material in A.H. 1.29 concerns the figure of Monogenes. Monogenes appears suddenly in 1.29.4 without being mentioned beforehand. To find the identity of Monogenes, one must turn to later instantiations of the myth, where Monogenes is identified with the Christ-Light figure. Although the Christ-light figure is identified with the “Son” (filius) in A.H. 1.29.3, Irenaeus did not previously reveal that he was also the “Only-begotten” Son. The name “Monogenes” recalls John 1:18 where Christ is called the “Only-begotten.” We thus have more evidence of the later Christian updating of the material in A.H. 1.29, an updating that likely took place after the writing of Gos. Judas.
.

.10 . Conclusion

This paper is not about the overall reliability of Irenaeus. It is only about the reliability of his specific claim that Valentinus was influenced by “a/the gnostic heresy” (A.H. 1.11.1) as represented by A.H. 1.29.
.