Talk:Valentinianism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Religion Portal This article is supported by WikiProject Religion. This project provides a central approach to Religion-related subjects on wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.
Start	This article has been rated as Start on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

I question the spelling as "Valentianism" Shouldn't this be "Valentinianism"? Followers of Valentinus are Valentinian.

The line in the first paragraph stating that Valentinus "defied" orthodoxy is not totally accurate.

Contents 1 "Orthodoxy" and Apostolic Tradition 2 Fascinating, but what was the doctrine? 3 Modern Valentinians 4 What's this suppposed to mean? 5 The Further Reading

[edit] "Orthodoxy" and Apostolic Tradition

Orthodoxy is a dangerous word to use in this context, and should be applied I think to doctrines of the fourth century and after. Early Christian writers used words like universal or apostolic.

Authors like Frances Young (Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture) and Manlio Simonetti (Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church) point out that the main line separating universal and heretical teaching in this period was the relationship of Christianity to Israel. According to Justin, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, those who believed the God of Jesus Christ to be the same as the God of Israel were "apostolic" and believed in the "universal faith." Those who saw Christ as a being who liberated us from oppression by the (false) god of Israel were considered heretics by the same authors. Marcionites and Valentinians fell into the later category, as did many other types of Gnostics.

The belief that Christians worshipped the God of Israel was indeed a near universal belief among the first generations of Christians. It could hardly be avoided, as most early Christians were Jews. The Pauline synthesis of Christianity that many Gentiles inherited included this belief. Second century gnostic authors (all of them non-Jews) challenged this belief on cultural, rational, and spiritual grounds, but in doing so they did indeed propose a different synthesis of Christianity than the one inherited from the earliest Christians.

I agree that we should avoid simple characterizations of Orthodox = Good, Gnostic = Bad. On the other hand, it is incorrect I think to characterize first and second century Christianity as a mere amalgam of disparate belief that only later was sorted into orthodoxy and heresy. There were widely held tenets of belief and worship even among first century Christians, and the arc of those beliefs can be traced through the controversies of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. The "gnostics" were those who proposed new syntheses of belief regarding Christ and the Law, Christ and the Cosmos, Christ and the human person. In many cases, these new teachings had strong philosophical grounds and they were proposed as "correctives" to an inherited tradition. In general, patristic authors reject these beliefs, and refer to Apostolic tradition as the authentic Christian doctrine.

And what the majority of illiterate Christians made of all these controversies as they went about their business is anyone's guess.

[edit] Fascinating, but what was the doctrine?

Johnbod 17:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It might of actually been a movement centered on some doctrine, but this article is pretty limited :/. Homestarmy 19:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Finally! Thanks Aburke4. Johnbod

[edit] Modern Valentinians

is it worth mentioning that author phillip k dick followed a valentinian theology? FaustX 20:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, that doesn't even seem to be in his Wiki article... Homestarmy 20:14, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's this suppposed to mean?

"Sophia is what is known as a demiurge, an imperfect and flawed creator, which is identified with the deficient God of the Old Testament." I don't quite understand what this line means, is this saying that Valentine theology identified God as deficient and refers to God as Sophia, or is it trying to state as fact that God is deficient? Because the latter really isn't neutral, and I don't think its currently written to precisely mean the former. Homestarmy 16:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

After reading the rest of the paragraph, i'm fairly certain it was meant to mean the former definition, and i've changed it to (hopefully) be more clear. Homestarmy 00:55, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted some changes Homestarmy has made, because they are altering the meaning of material closely referenced to works he has not read (I'm assuming from his comments in the edit summaries & above). If they are correct his changes would mostly make the article clearer; they are of course available in the history - all done today. Johnbod 01:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

And how do they not make the article clearer? In particular, I must strongly object to the wording I highlighted in particular in this section, as it stands, the sentence seems to most clearly be attempting to state as absolute fact that God in the Old Testament is "deficient", without qualifying that this is the Valentinian view until the next sentence, due to the lack of clarity on what "which is identified" means. (Identified by whom?) I don't care as much about the other things, the additions just plain didn't read very clearly to me in only a few minor other cases, all in all, I thought the expansion was quite well done except for this one sentence. Homestarmy 02:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Just a guess, but the "deficient" God of the OT might be because he is there described as one person, not the 3 of the Trinity. Or that he lacked omniscience. But I don't know, & I agree it needs clarifying. I think it is perfectly clear that deficiency is the V view, but it is not at all clear what deficient is supposed to mean. Your change later re the position of women seemed to be changing the meaning in a way (my guess again) that would not reflect what the reference said. I've left a message on his talk page; these were his first edits (under that user-name), so lets hope he comes back. In the meantime, I'll put weaselly " "s round deficient. Johnbod 02:29, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't really understand how changing the sentence to read something like "Sophia is what is known as a demiurge, an imperfect and flawed creator, who is identified in Valentinian terms as the God of the Old Testament, and who was seen as deficient by the Valentinians. changes the meaning. Sure, it's a bit longer, but I don't see how the meaning of the text changes, except for the better in terms of being more clear... On the woman thing, I saw it as a POV error, it seemed to be stating as fact that the Catholic church's treatment of women was "not as good" as Valentinian, which is a value judgement in the first place, and even though it was backed up by a reference, I don't think that's an excuse to state something as relative as that as fact. Homestarmy 02:37, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Further Reading

When the expansion was done, all of the books were added into a further reading section, but it looks like since there's Harvard Citation in the article, these were meant to be references. However, I can't be sure what's what, were all of the books meant to be references? Further Reading generally contains things that aren't actually utilized by the article at all, but would likely be helpful to a reader on the topic at hand. Homestarmy 02:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I've put the 9 I can see actuals refs to in refs, & the other 2 in further reading. Johnbod 02:40, 3 April 2007 (UTC)