us to about the same period within the episcopate of Eleutherus (+ c. 190).(1) We have here, therefore, a clue to the date at which Irenæus wrote. It must be remembered that at that period the multiplication and dissemination of books was a very slow process. A work published about 184 or 185 could scarcely have come into the possession of Irenæus in Gaul till some years later, and we are, therefore, brought towards the end of the episcopate of Eleutherus as the earliest date at which the first three books of his work against Heresies can well have been written, and the rest must be assigned to a later period under the episcopate of Victor (+ 198—199).(2)
At this point we must pause and turn to the evidence which Tischendorf offers regarding the date to be assigned to Heracleon.(3) As in the case of Ptolemæus, we shall give it entire and then examine it in detail. To the all-important question: "How old is Heracleon?" Tischendorf replies: "Irenæus names Heracleon, together
3 Canon Westcott adds no separate testimony. He admits that:
"The history of Heracleon, the great Valentinian
Commentator, is full of uncertainty. Nothing is known of his
country or parentage." On the Canon, p. 263, and in a note:
"The exact chronology of the early heretics is very
uncertain," p. 264, note 2. p 2
with Ptolemaeus II. 4, § 1, in a way which makes them appear as well-known representatives of the Valentinian school. This interpretation of his words is all the more authorized because he never again mentions Heracleon. Clement, in the 4th Book of his Stromata, written shortly after the death of Commodus (193), recalls an explanation by Heracleon of Luke xii. 8, when he calls him the most noted, man of the Valentinian school [———] is Clement's expression). Origen, at the beginning of his quotation from Heracleon, says that he was held to be a friend of Valentinus [———]. Hippolytus mentions him, for instance, in the following way: (vi. 29); 'Valentinus, and Heracleon, and Ptolemæus, and the whole school of these, disciples of Pythagoras and Plato....' Epiphanius says (Hser. 41): 'Cerdo (the same who, according to Irenæus III. 4, § 3, was in Rome under Bishop Hyginus with Valentinus) follows these (the Ophites, Kainites, Sethiani), and Heracleon.' After all this Heracleon certainly cannot be placed later than 150 to 160. The expression which Origen uses regarding his relation to Valentinus must, according to linguistic usage, be understood of a personal relation."(1)
We have already pointed out that the fact that the names of Ptolemæus and Heracleon are thus coupled together affords no clue in itself to the date of either, and their being mentioned as leading representatives of the school of Valentinus does not in any way involve the inference that they were not contemporaries of Irenæus, living and working at the time he wrote. The way in which Irenæus mentions them in this the only passage throughout his whole work in which he names
Heracleon, and to which Tischendorf pointedly refers, is as follows: "But if it was not produced, but was generated by itself, then that which is void is both like, and brother to, and of the same honour with, that Father who has before been mentioned by Valentinus; but it is really more ancient, having existed long before, and is more exalted than the rest of the Æons of Ptolemseus himself, and of Heracleon, and all the rest who hold these views."(1) We fail to recognize anything special, here, of the kind inferred by Tischendorf, in the way in which mention is made of the two later Gnostics. If anything be clear, on the contrary, it is that a distinction is drawn between Valentinus and Ptolemaeus and Heracleon, and that Irenæus points out inconsistencies between the doctrines of the founder and those of his later followers. It is quite irrelevant to insist merely, as Tischendorf does, that Irenæus and subsequent writers represent Ptolemaeus and Heracleon and other Gnostics of his time as of "the school" of Valentinus. The question simply is, whether in doing so they at all imply that these men were not contemporaries of Irenæus, or necessarily assign their period of independent activity to the lifetime of Valentinus, as Tischendorf appears to argue? Most certainly they do not, and Tischendorf does not attempt to offer any evidence that they do so. We may perceive how utterly worthless such a fact is for the purpose of affixing an early date by merely considering the quotation which Tischendorf himself makes from Hippolytus: "Valentinus, therefore, and Heracleon and Ptolemæus, and
