Table of Contents

PART I VALENTINIANISM EAST AND WEST
1 The Valentinians of Irenaeus
2 “Valentinus” in Iren. Haer. I 11:1
3 The doctrine of Theodotus
4 The two “schools”
5 The soteriology of The Tripartite Tractate
6 The soteriology of Irenaeus’ system
7 The soteriology of Exc. 43:2–65
8 The soteriology of Iren. Haer. I 7:2
9 The soteriology of Hipp. Haer. VI 29–36
10 Provisional conclusions
11 Eastern soteriologies: The Treatise on the Resurrection
12 Eastern soteriologies: The Interpretation of Knowledge
13 Eastern soteriologies: The Gospel of Philip
14 The soteriology of Heracleon
15 The position of Ptolemy

PART II THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF VALENTINIANISM
16 Salvation in history and ritual
17 Salvation in history and protological myth
18 Protology, salvation history, and ritual
19 Conclusion to Part II

PART III VALENTINIAN PROTOLOGY
20 The pleromatology
21 The myth of separation and restoration
22 Chronology of the protologies
23 The meaning and origins of Valentinian protology
24 The transformation of eschatology to protology

PART IV VALENTINIAN INITIATION
25 The sources
26 Initiation: Synopsis of the acts
y of the initiation ritual
28 The historical position of Valentinian initiation
29 A ritual for the dying

PART V VALENTINUS AND THE “VALENTINIANS”
30 Valentinus: biography and sources
31 Valentinus: a study of the fragments
32 Valentinians: fragments of the history of Valentinianism

About the Author

Kevin M. Doak, Ph.D. (1989) in East Asian Languages and Cultures, The University of Chicago, is the Nippon Foundation Endowed Chair in Japanese Studies at Georgetown University. He has published extensively on Japanese nationalism, social and political thought, including Dreams of Difference: The Japan Romantic School and the Crisis of Modernity (California, 1994).

Reviews

'The author has a good sense of the philosophical and theological issues at stake and situates the tradition well in the intellectual world of the second century... a very ambitious and very learned reconstruction of the Valentinian tradition. This monograph will make a major contribution to the study of early Christian life and thought.' Harold W. Attridge (University of Notre Dame) 'The Spiritual Seed is in my opinion the most important book on Valentinian Gnostic Christianity published since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices 60 years ago.' Birger A. Pearson, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara. 'Einar Thomassen's The Spiritual Seed is a magisterial work, the most comprehensive and authoritative study of Valentinian Christianity now available. Through his close readings of the often fragmentary ancient sources, Thomassen pieces together a compelling reconstruction of the history, teachings, and rituals of this fascinating branch of the early Christian movement. The book concludes with an original portrait of Valentinus himself. Newcomers to the study of Valentinianism will profit from the book's clear introduction to the important questions and figures, while specialists will find fresh insights and seasoned judgments on nearly every page. This is the one book that anyone interested in Valentinian Christianity should read.' David Brakke, Indiana University 'At slightly over 500 pages, Einar Thomassen's The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the "Valentinians" is by far the most important, thorough, and authoritative treatment of Valentinian Christianity in the 60 years since the publication of Francois Sagnard's La gnose valentinienne et le temoignage de saint Irenee in 1947. Its 32 chapters contain an exhaustive and careful analysis of all extant Valentinian literature from the Nag Hammadi library, the commentaries of Heracleon, Theodotus' Excerpts, and Ptolemy's Letter to Flora, and all the patristic testimonies that in turn were based on nearly a score of no-longer extant texts, well as all the fragmentary but non-systematic remains of psalms, homilies and letters that can be attributed to Valentinus himself. Thomassen systematically guides the reader through these texts under the heads of their soteriology, protology, and ritual practice and theory, each of which he subdivides by author and chronological development of specific doctrines and practices. All this is filled with illuminating explanations of the relation between the protological emergence of multiplicity from original unity and the eschatological reunification of multiplicity into final unity through the Savior' redemptive activity and its ritual and doctrinal re-presentation, which are traced back to their biblical and philosophical (mainly Platonic and Neopythagorean) sources. Thomassen clearly brings out the nature of Valentinus and the Valentinians as part of the Christian church, sharing nearly exactly the same scripture and ritual-liturgical protocol, which they interpreted according to a sophisticated interpretation of baptism and redemption of both all Christians and the Savior himself through the Name that he received at his baptism. He also shows how the late second-century split between the earlier Eastern branch of Valentinians associated with the bulk of Theodotus' fragments plus the Nag Hammadi treatises Gospel of Philip, Tripartite Tractate, Treatise on the Resurrection and Valentinian Exposition, and perhaps Heracleon himself) and the later western Valentinianism of Ptolemy and his contemporary and later adherents (preserved in the testimonies of Irenaeus and Hippolytus) arose over the latter's proposal of two Sophias and an additional third category of "psychic" humans together with a distinct "psychic" manifestation of the Savior beyond the original twofold distinction of natures-merely spiritual versus material-of both the Savior and human beings that stemmed from Valentinus and prevailed in the East. All-in-all, this clearly and patiently written work is a "blockbuster" that now gives a reliable account of Valentinian theology, ritual, and intellectual history. The Spiritual Seed is now the definitive treatment of Valentinianism and its biblical and philosophical bases, a "must have" for all scholars-and their research libraries-of ancient Gnosticism, second-century Christian history and thought, and historians of later Greek philosophy.' John D. Turner, University of Nebraska at Lincoln.