To the living she is alive, and dead only to those really dead.
O Earth, why dost thou wonder at this new kind of shade? or dost thou fear it?”
This was engraved on a cippus of white marble found about three miles from Rome in the Via Latina and is now in the Kircher Museum. Renan’s translation is given in Marc Aurèle, p. 147. That the lady’s name was Flavia seems evident from the acrostic contained in the first verse. She must also have been a pneumatic or spiritual from her husband’s confident expectation that she would be raised to the Heavenly Jerusalem and by his assertion of her deathlessness. Hence it may be inferred that Valentinus’ disciples even when of the highest spiritual rank were allowed to marry. Cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. Bk III. c. 17. The name “Angel of the Great Council” is applied to Christ by Justin Martyr (c. Tryph. c. 126) who says that He is so called by Ezekiel. The passage does not appear in the Canon.
[452]. Matter, Hist. du Gnosticisme, t. II. p. 126, quoting St Jerome.
[453]. Epiphanius, Haer. XXXIII. c. 3, pp. 401-413, Oehler. Cf. “the Elect Lady” to whom 2 John is addressed.
[454]. It should be remembered that Valentinus had been dead some 50 years when Irenaeus and Hippolytus wrote.
[455]. Amélineau, Gnost. Ég. Chap. V., pp. 281-320 passim.
[456]. Julian, Ep. 43, tells Hecebolius that the Arians of Edessa, “puffed up by their riches,” have maltreated the Valentinians, and that he has therefore ordered the confiscation of the estates and treasure of the Church of Edessa. It is doubtful whether the edict can have been enforced before the emperor’s death abrogated it.
[457]. We get at a sort of minimum date for its persistence from the career of St Ambrose, who had been a Valentinian in his youth (see Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. Bk VI. c. 18), and was made bishop of Milan in 374 A.D., he being then 34 years old. The sect therefore had adherents in Italy about 360 A.D.
[458]. It may be news to some that an attempt has lately been made to revive in Paris the heresy of Valentinus. See the Contemporary Review for May, 1897, or Jules Bois’ Les Petits Religions de Paris, where a full account of the services and hymns of “L’Église Gnostique” is given. Its founder, Jules Doinel, was reconverted to Catholicism some time before his death. Its present head is M. Fabre des Essarts.