And Now for Some Real Heretics, Part 2

Continued from Part 1.

Valentinus, a second-century follower of the apostle Paul, taught that Paul was actually a Gnostic who taught two gospels, one for Literalists and one for Gnostics. Who was Valentinus? Most of what we know of him comes from his Literalist opponents. According to Stephen A. Hoeller (http://www.gnosis.org/valentinus.htm),

He was born in Africa, probably within the territory of the ancient city of Carthage, around or before 100 A.D. He was educated in Alexandria and in the prime of his years transferred his residence to Rome, where he achieved a high degree of prominence in the Christian community between 135 and 160 A.D. Tertullian wrote that Valentinus was a candidate for the office of bishop of Rome and that he lost the election by a rather narrow margin. This same failed orthodox church father (Tertullian himself joined the heresy of Montanism) alleges that Valentinus fell into apostasy around 175 A.D. There is much evidence indicating, however, that he was never universally condemned as a heretic in his lifetime and that he was a respected member of the Christian community until his death. He was almost certainly a priest in the mainstream church and may even have been a bishop.

What were the teachings of Valentinus? According to Hoeller,

The often-debated cosmogony of Valentinus might be most profitably understood as being based on a single existential recognition, which might be summarized thus: Something is wrong. Somewhere, somehow, the fabric of being at the existential level of human functioning has lost its integrity. We live in a system which is lacking in essential integrity, and thus is defective. So-called orthodox Christians as well as Jews recognize that there is a certain "wrongness" in human existence, but they account for it chiefly in terms of the effects of human sin, original or other. Jews and Christians hold that whatever is wrong with the world and human existence is the result of human disobedience to the creator. This means, that all evil, discomfort, and terror in our lives and in history are somehow our fault. A great cosmic statement of "Mea Culpa" runs through this world view, which permanently affixes to the human psyche an element of titanic guilt. Valentinus, in opposition to this guilt-ridden view of life, held that the above-noted defect is not the result of our wrongdoing, but is inherent in the system of existence wherein we live and move and have our being. Moreover, by postulating that creation itself is lacking in integrity, Valentinus not only removes the weight of personal and collective guilt from our shoulders but also points to the redemptive potential resident in the soul of every human being.

Elaine Pagels in her book, The Gnostic Paul: Gnostic Exegesis of the Pauline Letters, (Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1992) examines the apostle Paul from a Valentinian perspective as opposed to the usual perspective derived from the anti-heretical Church Fathers Irenaeus, Origen and Tertullian. Irenaeus and Tertullian claim that Paul wrote the Pastoral Letters, then use those letters the claim that Paul was anti-Gnostic. The Valentinians, on the other hand claim that Paul wrote Romans , 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Pihlippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians and Hebrews. Note that modern scholars agree that the Pastoral Letters were written in the mid-second century and were written precisely to oppose Gnosticism.

From the Valentinian perspective, Paul taught two gospels, one for psychics (those who identify with the soul or psyche, the radius in the circle of the self, that which is connected both to the center, the one Consciousness and to the body and matter at the other end) and a secret one for pneumatics (those who identify with the Spirit or Consciousness, pneuma):

How can gnostic exegetes and theologians make this astonishing claim? Theodotus explains that Paul, having become “the apostle of the resurrection” through his experience of revelation, henceforth “taught in two ways at once.” On the one hand he preached the savior “according to the flesh” as one “who was born and suffered,” the kerygmatic gospel of “Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2) to those who were psychics, “because this they were capable of knowing, and in this way they feared him.” But to the elect he proclaimed Christ “according to the spirit, as one born from the spirit and a virgin” (cf. Rom. 1:3) for the apostle recognized that “each one knows the Lord in his own way: and not all know him alike.” (Pagels, p. 5)

That is, Paul taught to the pneumatics that Christ represents the center or the one Consciousness at the center of the circle of our being.

The Valentinians claim that most Christians make the mistake of reading the scriptures only literally. They themselves, through their initiation into gnosis, learn to read his letters (as they read all the scriptures) on the symbolic level, as they say Paul intended. Only this pneumatic reading yields “the truth” instead of its mere outward “image.”

The Valentinians agree with other Christians, for example, that Paul intends in Romans to contrast that salvation effected “by works,” “according to the law,” with the redemption that the elect receive “by grace.” But most Christians read the letter only in terms of the outward image—in terms of the contrast between the revelation to the Jews and the revelation extended through Christ to the Gentiles. They fail to see what Paul himself clearly states in Rom. 2:28f, that the terms (“Jew/Gentile”) are not to be taken literally:

"He is not a Jew, who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision what is outward in the flesh; (but) he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, pneumatic, not literal."

The Valentinians take this passage as Paul’s injunction to symbolic exegesis. While on the literal level he discusses the relation of Jews to Gentiles, simultaneously he
intends his words to be read on a pneumatic (that is, symbolic) level. According to such exegesis, Paul’s discussion of Jews and Gentiles in Romans refers allegorically to different groups of Christians—to psychic and pneumatic Christians respectively.

Practice of such exegesis enables the Valentinians to interpret Paul’s letters in an entirely new way. They consider the “literal” question of the relation between Jews and Gentiles to be already (c. 140-160) a dated issue, limited to a specific historical and cultural situation. What concerns them in the present is a different issue: how they themselves, as pneumatic Christians inititated into the secret mysteries of Christ, are related to the mass of “simple-minded,” “foolish” believers. They perceive that this problem (i.e., the relation of the “few” to the “many,” the “chosen” to the “called”) has characterized Christian communities from the first—from the time when the savior chose to initiate only a few into the secret meaning of his parables and deliberately let them remain obscure “to those outside” (Mk. 4:11). They conclude that it is this perennial problem (i.e., the relation of the “chosen few,” the elect, to the “many psychics” who are “called) that Paul intends to expound in his letter to the Romans. (Pagels, p. 6-7)

What the Valentinians have done then, by claiming in the mid-second century that Paul did so, was to posit two groups of Christians: Literalists and Gnostics, or Pistic (from “faith”) and Gnostic (from “knowledge”) Christians, or pneumatics and psychics. The hylics, those who identify with matter are left out as they would not be Christian.

Can this distinction between the types of human beings be a clue to answering our question of why early Christianity was considered to be an "abominable superstition?"

To be continued...