DeConick A.D

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SPIRITUAL AVATARS
Valentinus may have written the Gospel of Truth, a book preserved
in the Nag Hammadi collection (Irenaeus, Against the Heresies 3.11.9;
Pseudo-Tertullian, Prescription Against Heretics 4.6). It opens with these
words: “The gospel of truth is joy for those who have received from the
Father of truth the grace of knowing him” (Gospel of Truth NHC I.3
16.31–34). For Valentinus this led to a tremendous irony: when God, who
by his nature is good and gracious, reaches out from his goodness and
grace to save us, God ends up saving himself (Gospel of Truth NHC I.3
35.15–24).
Valentinus was quickly recognized as a brilliant theologian and drew
outstanding pupils to his school, first in Alexandria and then a decade
later in Rome, after he moved there in around 140 CE (Thomassen 2006;
Dunderberg 2008). In Rome he became involved in church affairs and
became famous for his intellectual talent and ability to interpret scriptures.
He was so successful as a theologian that he fully expected to be elected
the next bishop of Rome. Instead, another man, Pius, was elected pope,
and Valentinus took the defeat as a referendum against his vision of a
grace-based Christianity. So Valentinus and his students pulled away from
nascent Apostolic Catholic Christianity and reorganized as a Christian
protest movement with Gnostic spirituality at its center.
A Dual Church
Valentinus, the almost-pope, became the patriarch of Gnostic Christianity,
growing it by educating extraordinary theologians who set up congregations
that both mimicked the Catholic churches and subversively transcended
them. They did this by adopting Catholic scripture, prayers, and
rituals but interpreting and transforming them to meet their Gnostic spiritual
agenda (cf. Irenaeus, Against the Heresies 3.15.2; Tertullian, Against
the Valentinians 1). It was not always obvious that a church was Valentinian,
at least on the face of things. The church service would have included
the regularly performed Catholic rituals, prayers, and confessions. Because
of this, they attracted Apostolic Catholics from other local churches.
These parishioners may not have known that their church was a Gnostic
church until they showed interest in being initiated into the higher
spiritual matters of the church, in knowing the mysteries of the kingdom
of God, which the leader of the church had promised to reveal. Only then
would they assemble privately to be initiated into the unspeakable mystery