andrewcriddle

Although I regard the Gospel of Truth as basically a 2nd century work maybe written by Valentinus himself, one should note that some scholars regard its present text as having been influenced by the 4th century Arian controversy. The phrase is particularly likely to be a 4th century interpolation.

Andrew Criddle

stephan huller

'Scholars' like Pete the mountainman certainly. The Marcionites had baptism in the name of the Father - From Michael the Syrian (French translation p. 107)

Justin Nicopolis (Neapolis) went with him to Rome and wrote a petition to the emperor to commit to stop the persecution against Christians. Gerson (Cerdo), otherwise known as Marcion and Marc appeared to him. They had come to Rome and maintained that Jesus Christ is not the son of God foretold by the prophets, and that there was no Resurrection. On the baptized, they said: "In the name of the Father there appeared, in the name of the true Mother, and in the name of the Son who came down on God, with other extravagances.

Toto

A commentator on DeConick's post here cited Kendrick Grobel's Gospel of Truth (or via: amazon.co.uk) for the idea that there are Trinitarian interpolations, but DeConick replied, "No this is original doctrine of Valentinus, that the Holy Spirit reveals the Son to the other Aeons."

andrewcriddle

I couldn't find a good online reference for this debate (which is not about Trinitarian elements as such in the Gospel of Truth but the precise nature of some of the Trinitarian ideas found) the best I could find is Aetius and Eunomius by Mortley

Andrew Criddle

avi

I disagree.

In my opinion, these are all, AT BEST, secondary sources.

A primary source, unless I am badly mistaken, must be authored by the individual himself/herself.

Correct me, if I err here.

At least in the world of science, a world where I am more at home, than here, stumbling about with lovers of teutonic English, a primary source is one written by the author's hand.

avi

Toto

Wikipedia may be a bit imprecise in using the term "primary sources."

avi

Thank you Toto, I wasn't particularly interested in the definition, as I was in the degree of confidence held in the manuscript evidence for this particular document under discussion.

I think it should be made clear, that we are engaging in debate about an interpretation based on text available to us, text which is AT BEST, forged, mutilated, and redacted, from at least the fourth century, onwards, if not even a couple of centuries earlier.

In my view, we actually have no clue what Valentinus really wrote, thought, or taught. The "Gospel of Truth", could just as easily be titled: "Gospel of Lies"...We are dependent upon a series of manuscripts, (themselves subject to incredible pressure to adopt the status quo of that era, for one and a half millenia,) to present Valentinus' "true" beliefs.

avi

Toto

If you accept the normal standards of proof for ancient history, there are multiple sources that confirm the existence of a school of thought referred to as Valentinian, and those who study it seem confident that they know the substance of the philosophy and can trace its roots to Platonic and Jewish thinking. I don't think anyone is quite as confident over any of the personal details of Valentinus himself, but those are of less importance.

stephan huller

I don't think anyone knows what the Valentinian tradition was all about. The argument that the text reflects fourth century beliefs must necessarily argue that we know what the second century theology of the heretics was and we simply don't know that.

avi

I would go one step further, and argue that I don't even know what the second century orthodox theology was all about....

Clement (Rome) about 100 CE
Clement (Alexandria) about 200 CE
Irenaeus (Rome) about 200 CE
Polycarp (Smyrna) about 150 CE
Ignatius (Antioch) about 100 CE
Justin Martyr (Rome) about 150 CE
Tatian (Rome) about 150 CE
Hegesippus (Rome) about 150 CE

Didache....first or second century?
Epistle of Barnabas...first or second century?

The other famous "patristic" authors, Tertullian, Origen, Hippolytus, wrote in the third century....

Then, the problem is, other than Eusebius' (secondary) reference to these authors, where are the PRIMARY sources, for any of these authors/documents? So far as I could determine, every one of these documents/author's ostensible manuscripts, has been tampered with, for political expediency or military diktat. What we need is an original from any of these folks.....Without an unabridged version, we are just speculating.

avi