Valentinians and John 1

**Valentinians and John 1**

Valentinians often refer to the prologue of the Gospel of John when it says, *“In the beginning was the Word”* (John 1:1). In their understanding, the “Word” (Logos) corresponds to the divine Mind and Truth. This interpretation is clear in the writings of Theodotus, a prominent Valentinian teacher.

Valentinian cosmology is complex and doctrinal. Unlike some modern spiritual movements that view dogma as limiting, classical Gnostics—including the Valentinians—considered doctrine crucial. For modern Gnostics, understanding these doctrines matters because cosmology (the study of the universe’s origin) directly shapes anthropology (the study of human nature in relation to the divine). Simply put, our view of mankind depends on our view of the cosmos.

Valentinian cosmology arises largely from a study of John’s prologue, which itself is a reflection on creation and divine attributes. Together, these elements constitute the Pleroma.

The Pleroma, meaning “fullness,” does not represent something eternal or unchanging. Rather, it was produced and formed by the Eternal Spirit through a process called emanation. The Pleroma refers to all existence beyond the visible universe — the world of the Aions, the spiritual heavens, or the spiritual universe. Bythos, the spiritual source of all, emanates the Pleroma.

The Pleroma is both the dwelling place and essential nature of the True Ultimate Deity, or Bythos. It is also a state of consciousness.

Different versions of this cosmological myth appear throughout Valentinian texts. The Aions are emanations of the Divine Mind. Unlike some Gnostic systems, Valentinians do not use the terms Barbelo or Yaldabaoth. Instead, the emanations form pairs (syzygy) such as Logos (male) and Zoe (female), Anthropos (male) and Ekklesia (female).

A brief summary of the Valentinian system is this: from the transcendent Deity emanated a male principle called Mind and a female principle called Thought. From these principles emanated others in male-female pairs, making a total of thirty Aions. These Aions collectively form the fullness, or Pleroma — the divine realm, the spiritual world beyond the physical heavens, also called the Third Heaven.

**John 1:1–4** says:

*“In the beginning was the Word (Logos or the first thought or reason of God), and the Word was with God (the Monad, the transcendent Deity), and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.”*

From *Excerpta ex Theodoto* (Theodotus), we read:

*“The verse, ‘In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God,’ the Valentinians understand thus: the ‘beginning’ is the ‘Only Begotten’ and he is also called God. The Logos in the beginning — that is, in the Only Begotten, in the Mind and the Truth — indicates the Christ, the Logos and the Life \[Zoe]. Hence, he also appropriately calls God him who is in God, the Mind. ‘That which came into being in him,’ the Logos, ‘was Life,’ the Companion. Therefore the Lord also says, ‘I am the Life.’”*

This Logos, understood as Mind and Truth, compares with the *Tripartite Tractate*:

*“The Father, in the way mentioned earlier, in an unbegotten way, is the one in whom he knows himself, who begot him having a thought, which is the perception of him... that is, silence and wisdom and grace, if designated properly.”*

Theodotus further explains:

*“Therefore, the Father, being unknown, wished to be known to the Aions, and through his own thought, as if he had known himself, he put forth the Only-Begotten, the spirit of Knowledge which is in Knowledge. So he too who came forth from Knowledge, that is, from the Father’s Thought, became Knowledge, that is, the Son, because ‘through the Son the Father was known.’”*

The first thought is the Logos, also called Mind and Truth. The Father, through that first thought, brings forth the Only Begotten Son.

Valentinian cosmology begins with the primal being, the Monad, meaning the One. The *Valentinian Exposition* states:

*“The Monad who is, the Father, that is, the Root of the All, the Ineffable One. He dwells alone in silence, and silence is tranquility since he was a Monad and no one was before him.”*

From the *Valentinian Exposition*, we see that the primal ineffable Father has two components or aspects: a male called Bythos (Depth) and a female called Sige (Silence). The supreme Deity is incomprehensible, cannot be seen or heard, and is androgynous. This is expressed in the phrase:

*“He dwells in the Dyad and in the Pair, and his Pair is Silence.”*

This dyadic or syzygy consists of the primal Depth (male) and Ennoia or Thought (female).

A biblical parallel appears in **Proverbs 8:22–30**, where Wisdom is personified as being brought forth before creation:

*“Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of his way... When there were no depths, I was brought forth... When he established the heavens, I was there... Then I was by him, as a master workman; and I was daily his delight.”*

Here, Wisdom is not a separate deity but the personification of God’s attribute of wisdom: truth, justice, value, faithfulness, and eternal companionship.

Thus, from both John 1 and Proverbs 8, the God of the Bible is seen as incorporating masculine and feminine characteristics through these aspects, with the Father creating the universe. This aligns with the Valentinian understanding.

Returning to John’s prologue, Ptolemy’s *Commentary on the Gospel of John* states:

*“The entirety was made through it, and without it was not anything made” (John 1:3). For the Word became the cause of the forming and origination of all the Aions that came after it.”*

From *Excerpta ex Theodoto*:

*“All things were made by him; things both of spirit, mind, and senses, in accordance with the activity proper to the essential Logos. ‘This one explained the bosom of the Father,’ the Saviour... ‘First-Born of all creation.’ But the essential Only-Begotten... is the Light of the Church, which previously was in darkness and ignorance.”*

*“And darkness comprehended him not”: the apostates and the rest of men did not know him, and death did not detain him.”*

Valentinians maintain that the essential Logos is God in God, “in the bosom of the Father,” continuous and undivided — one God.

Ptolemy’s commentary further explains the pair (syzygy):

*“That which came into being in it was Life” (John 1:4). This discloses a pair. The entirety came into being through it, but Life is in it, joined with it and through it bears fruit. Since ‘Life \[Zoe] was the light of human beings,’ John discloses the Church by means of a synonym, so with a single word he might disclose the partnership of the pair.”*

*“From the Word \[Logos] and Life \[Zoe], the Human Being \[Anthropos] and the Church \[Ekklesia] came into being. He called Life the light of human beings because they are enlightened by her, i.e., formed and made visible.”*

John thus reveals the second quartet: Word, Life, Human Being, Church.

Moreover, John discloses the first quartet: Father, Grace, Only-Begotten, Truth. Together, these two quartets form the first octet — the mother of all Aions. The Savior is, according to Irenaeus, the fruit of the entire Pleroma.

In conclusion, the Valentinian reading of John 1 centers on divine emanations — Mind, Truth, Life, Human Being, and Church — as the fundamental components of the spiritual cosmos, formed through emanation from the Monad, the ultimate transcendent Deity. This reading reflects a deeply doctrinal and cosmological vision, affirming the essential importance of dogma in understanding the human condition and our place in the fullness (Pleroma) beyond the material world.

Valentinus

Bentley Layton has sketched out a relationship between the various gnostic movements in his introduction to The Gnostic Scriptures (SCM Press, London, 1987). In this model, "Classical Gnosticism" and "The School of Thomas" antedated and influenced the development of Valentinus, who was to found his own school of Gnosticism in both Alexandria and Rome, whom Layton called "the great [Gnostic] reformer" and "the focal point" of Gnostic development. While in Alexandria, where he was born, Valentinus probably would have had contact with the Gnostic teacher Basilides, and may have been influenced by him.

Valentinianism flourished after the middle of the 2nd century AD. This movement was named after its founder Valentinus (c. 100 – 180 AD). The school is also known to have been extremely popular: several varieties of their central myth are known, and we know of "reports from outsiders from which the intellectual liveliness of the group is evident." It is known that Valentinus' students elaborated on his teachings and materials (though the exact extent of their changes remains unknown), for example, in the version of the Valentinian myth brought to us through Ptolemy.

Valentinianism might be described as the most elaborate and philosophically "dense" form of the Syrian-Egyptian schools of Gnosticism, though it should be acknowledged that this in no way debarred other schools from attracting followers. Basilides' own school was popular also, and survived in Egypt until the 4th century.

Simone Petrement, in A Separate God, in arguing for a Christian origin of Gnosticism, places Valentinus after Basilides, but before the Sethians. It is her assertion that Valentinus represented a moderation of the anti-Judaism of the earlier Hellenized teachers; the demiurge, widely regarded as a mythological depiction of the Old Testament God of the Hebrews, is depicted as more ignorant than evil


Valentinian works are named in reference to the Bishop and teacher Valentinius. Circa 153 AD, Valentinius developed a complex cosmology outside of the Sethian tradition. At one point he was close to being appointed the Bishop of Rome of what is now the Roman Catholic Church. Works attributed to his school are listed below, and fragmentary pieces directly linked to him are noted with an asterisk:

• The Divine Word Present in the Infant (Fragment A) *
• On the Three Natures (Fragment B) *
• Adam's Faculty of Speech (Fragment C) *
• To Agathopous: Jesus' Digestive System (Fragment D) *
• Annihilation of the Realm of Death (Fragment F) *
• On Friends: The Source of Common Wisdom (Fragment G) *
• Epistle on Attachments (Fragment H) *
• Summer Harvest*
• The Gospel of Truth*
• Ptolemy's Version of the Gnostic Myth
• Prayer of the Apostle Paul
• Ptolemy's Epistle to Flora
• Treatise on the Resurrection (Epistle to Rheginus)
• Gospel of Philip

Orthodox Church Service vs Valentinian Church Service

Orthodox Church Service vs Valentinian Church Service

The Biblical view: 

“All you are brothers,” Jesus had said to his disciples. “Your Leader is one, the Christ.” (Matt. 23:8, 10) So there was no clergy class within Christian congregations of the first century.  As to organization, each congregation was supervised by a body of overseers, or spiritual elders. All the elders had equal authority, and not one of them was authorized to ‘lord it over’ the flock in their care. (Acts 20:17; Phil. 1:1; 1 Pet. 5:2, 3) However, as the apostasy unfolded, things began to change—quickly.

Clergy and Laity

Among the earliest deviations was a separation between the terms “overseer” (Gr., episkopos sometimes translated Bishop) and “elder” (Gr., presbyteros ), so that they were no longer used to refer to the same position of responsibility. Just a decade or so after the death of the apostle John, Ignatius, “bishop” of Antioch, in his letter to the Smyrnaeans, wrote: “See that you all follow the bishop [overseer], as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery [body of elders] as if it were the Apostles.” Ignatius thus advocated that each congregation be supervised by one bishop, or overseer, who was to be recognized as distinct from, and having greater authority than, the presbyters.

The English word “priest” derives from presbyteros (“elder”) as follows: from Middle English pre(e)st, from Old English preost, from Vulgar Latin prester, contracted from Late Latin presbyter, from Greek pre·sby´te·ros.
So the orthodox Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, defines the church in terms of the bishop, who represents that system:

Let no one do anything pertaining to the church without the bishop. Let that be considered a valid eucharist which is celebrated by the bishop, or by the person whom he appoints . . . Wherever the bishop offers [the eucharist], let the congregation be present, just as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church. Ignatius, Smyrneans 8.1-2.

Lest any "heretic" suggest that Christ may be present even when the bishop is absent, Ignatius sets him straight:

It is not legitimate either to baptize or to hold an agape [eucharist, breaking or bread a meal] without the bishop . . . To join with the bishop is to join the church; to separate oneself from the bishop is to separate oneself not only from the church, but from God himself. Ignatius, Smyrneans 8.1-2.

Apart from the church hierarchy, he insists, "there is nothing that can be called a church."Trallians 3.1.

The groundwork was thus laid for a clergy class gradually to emerge. About a century later, Cyprian, “bishop” of Carthage, North Africa, was a strong advocate of authority of the bishops—as a group separate from the presbyters (later known as priests), the deacons, and the laity. But he did not favor the primacy of one bishop over the others.


As bishops and presbyters ascended the hierarchical ladder, they left below it the rest of the believers in the congregation. This resulted in a separation between clergy (those taking the lead) and laity (the passive body of believers). 

In time the bishop of Rome, claiming to be a successor of Peter, was thought of as the supreme bishop and pope

Valentinian Church Service

The community would meet on Sundays (whether before sunrise or in the evening—or both—we do not know). 

Valentinian initiates took turns performing the various liturgical tasks ensuring a high degree of participation by the membership. According to Tertullian, "Today one man is bishop and tomorrow another; the person who is a deacon today, tomorrow is a reader; the one who is a priest is a layman tomorrow. For even on the laity they impose the functions of priesthood." ( Tertullian Against the Valentinians 1) He goes on to relate that even women could take the role of bishop, much to his horror.

Only the elementary Valentinian teachings were available at such public meetings. Initiates were expected to discern the newcomer's level of spiritual development and act accordingly. This discussed in the parable of appropriate diets in the Gospel of Philip: "Bodily forms will not deceive them, rather they consider the condition of each person's soul and they speak to that person accordingly. In the world there are many animals that have human form. If the disciples of God recognize that they are hogs, they feed them acorns; if cattle, barley chaff and fodder; if dogs, bones; if slaves, a first course; if children, a complete meal" (Gospel of Philip 81:3-13 cf. Hebrews 5:12-14). If a person was considered to be at a material level of development (i.e. "an animal") they received the nothing more than the teaching available at the public meeting ("acorns", "chaff" and "bones").

If the person was considered to be at an animate level (i.e. "a slave") they would be invited to private classes. In these classes they recived elementary teachings ( "a first course") in order to determine if were worthy of further instruction. Valentinians saw most Christians as fitting into this category. Pupils assigned to this category had the potential to move on to the next level. If the person had progressed to the highest spiritual level and become a "child," they were invited to join an advanced class where they would receive the complete teaching. According to Tertullian, complete instruction could last as long as five years and involved rigorous self-discipline. It should be noted that all who received the private instruction were bound by the "duty of Silence" not to disclose it to non-initiates (cf. Tertullian Against the Valentinians 1).

Full initiates acted as the person's spiritual guide towards the ultimate goal of gnosis. Eventual initiation was dependent on evidence of gnosis. To become an initiate one had to "no longer believe from human testimony but from the Truth itself." (Fragments of Herakleon 39). To this end, much of the training at the advanced stage of instruction would have likely focused on meditation techniques. One the person had completed the training and demonstrated evidence of gnosis, they would be initiated by receiving the Valentinian baptism. 

Spirituals and psychics worshipped together for the first part of the service, which comprised a confession, a collection and the singing of a “hymn of the humble,” and praying for redemption. Perhaps both groups listened together to a sermon. Baptism of new members may have taken place at this point. The second part of the service was for the spirituals only, i.e., the baptized. It included the singing of psalms from Valentinus’ psalm-book. The congregation sang in an enthusiastic mode, seeking communion with the transcendent aeons.

After that, a senior member of the congregation delivered a sermon. Then followed a Eucharistic meal, with bread and wine mixed with water, or just water. The elements were consecrated by means of an invocation for the presence of spiritual power and eaten as a prefiguration of the eschatological wedding feast of the bridal chamber. During the meal, individual church members stood up to prophesy, conveying messages from the aeonic world, perhaps speaking in tongues.

The ritual sequence as a whole shows a certain family resemblance to second century Christian Sunday worship as described in Justin, 1 Apology 67, though the enthusiastic aspects are clearly more prominent than in Justin’s account. Our general knowledge about the structure of Christian services during this period is in any case very scant. In a broad perspective, the Valentinian version of regular Christian worship, with its communal style of psalm singing and its general character as a service of the word, seems to owe more to Jewish and Christian traditions of congregation ritual than to the conventional forms of Greco-Roman cult.

Valentinus' Vision of the Word

I saw a newborn child, and questioned it to find out who it was. And the child answered me saying, "I am the Word


Fragments From Lost Writings of Valentinus from: Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (Doubleday, 1987), pp. 223-49.

This saying from Valentinus reminds me of the saying from the Gospel of Thomas

Saying 4 Jesus said, "A person advanced in days will not hesitate to question a little child seven days old about the place of life. And that person will live. For many that are first will be last, and they will become one."

22) Jesus saw some little ones nursing. He said to his disciples, "These little ones who are nursing resemble is those who enter the kingdom."

The Gospel of Philip Jesus Tricked Everyone

Jesus tricked everyone, for he did not appear as he was, but he appeared so that he could be seen. He appeared to everyone. He [appeared] to the great as great, he [appeared] to the small as small, he [appeared [58] to the] angels as an angel and to humans as a human. For this reason his word was hidden from everyone. Some looked at him and thought they saw themselves. But when he appeared to his disciples in glory upon the mountain, he was not small. He became great. Or rather, he made the disciples great, so they could see him in his greatness.

The Tripartite Tractate: 

Rather, he exists by himself. As for the parts in which he exists in his own manner and form and greatness, it is possible for <them> to see him and speak about that which they know of him, since they wear him while he wears them, because it is possible for them to comprehend him. He, however, is as he is, incomparable. In order that the Father might receive honor from each one and reveal himself, even in his ineffability, hidden, and invisible, they marvel at him mentally. Therefore, the greatness of his loftiness consists in the fact that they speak about him and see him. He becomes manifest, so that he may be hymned because of the abundance of his sweetness, with the grace of <...>. And just as the admirations of the silences are eternal generations and they are mental offspring, so too the dispositions of the word are spiritual emanations. Both of them admirations and dispositions, since they belong to a word, are seeds and thoughts of his offspring, and roots which live forever, appearing to be offspring which have come forth from themselves, being minds and spiritual offspring to the glory of the Father.