The subject of this learned monograph, which has grown out of doctoral work supervised by G. Sfameni-Gasparro, is the so called ‘Great Notice’, the central section of Irenaeus of Lyon's presentation of the doctrine of the school of Valentinus (Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus haereses 1.1–8). Chiapparini undertakes the first sustained and detailed analysis of this important source for the early history of Valentinianism and second-century Christian theology since F. M. Sagnard's La Gnose valentinienne et le temoignage de Saint Irénée (Paris 1947).

The first part (pp. 3–60) presents an introduction which surveys previous research and discusses, inter alia, the relation between the doctrine of the ‘Great Notice’ and the original doctrine of Valentinus, the dating of the ‘Great Notice’, its redaction and the transmission of its text. Chiapparini notes a tendency in recent research to marginalise the ‘Great Notice’ by privileging source material from the Nag Hammadi Library and by postulating a difference between the original doctrine of Valentinus and that of his disciples. Chiapparini supposes that Irenaeus during his Roman period – which is dated with remarkable confidence to the years 153–73 ce – collected the material for the ‘Great Notice’ and produced a first draft of the first book of Against the heresies (p. 40: ‘un opusculo antivalentiniano’). Chiapparini points out that in Rome Irenaeus must have been in contact with the first generation of Valentinus' disciples who were active when the master was still alive: the tight chronology suggests to him a certain degree of doctrinal continuity within the Valentinian school (pp. 22–3). Chiapparini's theory of a first draft of Adversus haereses i which Irenaeus augmented with additional material in order to produce the final version builds on and nuances previous research (by, for example, J. Kalvesmaki). An attentive reading of books i and ii of Adversus haereses (particularly their prefaces) may indeed suggest that Irenaeus' opus magnum was an evolving project. However, not all of Chiapparini's arguments are equally cogent: in the Latin translation of a crucial passage of Adversus haereses i, preface 2 (‘Et quantum nobis virtutis adest, sententiam ipsorum qui nunc aliud docent, dico autem eorum qui sunt circa Ptolomaeum, quae est velut flosculum Valentini scolae, compendiose et manifeste ostendemus, et aliis occasiones dabimus secundum nostram mediocritatem ad evertendum eam’: ed. Rousseau/Doutreleau, Sources chrétiennes cclxiv. 22–4) Chiapparini wishes to supplement aliis (the absence of which in the Greek text the Rousseau/Doutreleau apparatus does not note) with temporibus so as to make Irenaeus say that he will furnish the refutation of Valentinian doctrine at another time/on another occasion (pp. 27–8, 31 n. 7). However, no supplementary noun, tacit or otherwise, is probably needed here. The Latin translator saw fit to supply an indirect object and simply makes Irenaeus say that he will provide others with the intellectual means to refute the Valentinians (compare preface 3, l.68–70 ed. Rousseau/Doutreleau, Sources chrétiennes cclxiv, p. 26 with again a slightly differring Latin translation). Chiapparini himself points out similar clarifying or explanatory additions by the Latin translator in the text of the ‘Great Notice’. The second and central part (pp. 61–276) presents a synopsis of the text of the ‘Great Notice’ in Greek and Latin accompanied by an Italian translation and copious notes discussing text critical matters and explaining selected (doctrinal) terms and phrases. Chiapparini's reconstruction of the text privileges the Greek fragments transmitted mainly by the Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis (and, to a minor degree, by Hippolytus of Rome and Theodoret of Cyrus) over against the fourth/fifth-century Latin translation of Adversus haereses. In addition Chiapparini presents the relevant parallel sections of Tertullian's Adversus Valentinianos whose source may have been the first draft of Irenaeus' Adversus haereses i postulated by him (pp. 45–50). Chiapparini evokes the formidable complexity of the task of textual reconstruction and deplores the heavy-handed interventionism of some previous editors. He criticises them particularly for occasionally correcting the Greek text after explanatory additions in the Latin translation (pp. 122, 124, 149, 179).

The third part of the book (pp. 279–413) attempts an analysis of the doctrine of the ‘Great Notice’ and determines its relation to contemporaneous philosophies and theologies. First Chiapparini presents a subtle analysis of the rhetoric and composition of the ‘Great Notice’. According to Chiapparini, Irenaeus composed this account with considerable skill and in the manner of a mosaicist (‘con una tecnica ad intarsio’), combining at least three written sources, all of them attributable to either Ptolemy or his disciples and generally not too distant from the original doctrine of Valentinus. To this must be added various oral sources (pp. 279–96). The following detailed reconstruction of Valentinian doctrine (pp. 297–413) particularly focuses on the degree of dualism or ‘anticosmism’ evinced by the ‘Great Notice’ and the sources compared with it. Chiapparini correctly stresses its fundamental monism, the remarkable attempt to derive the whole of reality, including its negative features, from the highest principle. Whilst the original defect – the unsuccessful attempt of Wisdom, the youngest eon of the divine pleroma, to grasp the greatness of the paternal abyss – is firmly located within the divine realm itself, no negative principle equal to the highest level of being is admitted. An apt oxymoron sums up Chiapparini's view of this subtle exercise in ‘rational theodicy’: ’dualismo monarchiano’ (pp. 297–343, 404, 408). As to the much-discussed question of the relation between Valentinians and Valentinus, Chiapparini observes a complex interplay of continuity and discontinuity. For example, the disciples opted for a ‘more marked hypostatization of the pleromatic entities’, that is, a greater degree of independence of the pleromatic eons from their origin, only to stress at the same time the compactness of the highest level of the divine (p. 405). Here it should, however, be noted that Chiapparini's reconstruction controversially accepts Adversus haereses 11.1 without much further ado as reporting the doctrine of Valentinus. Moreover, he – like the majority of scholars – credits Tertullian, Adversus Valentinianos 4.2 with correctly describing the doctrinal difference between Valentinus and his disciples (but see my caution to the contrary in Revue d'histoire et de philosophie religieuses lxxv [1995], 179 n. 6). On the whole, Chiapparini discerns a development from an initial ‘procosmic’ attitude towards a more pronounced ‘anticosmic’ dualism. He also notes that to describe the development of second-century Gnosticism as a trajectory leading gradually away from the doctrine of majority Christianity opens up a lot of new questions not only with regard to Valentinianism but also to Gnosticism (and, one would like to add, to second-century Christianity) in general (p. 409). As to possible philosophical influences on Valentinian doctrine, Chiapparini speculates particularly about Aristotle (more precisely the ‘Aristotele perduto’, the doctrine of the lost writings of Aristotle) having paved the way for Gnosticism. In the wake of scholars such as A. P. Bos he assumes that Aristotle's critique of the Platonic demiurge inspired Middle Platonic theories of two gods, one hypercosmic and one cosmic, and thus provided the model for an important feature of Gnostic theology (pp. 349–50 with notes 364–6). A full, up-to- date and polyglot bibliography, five tables illustrating various versions of the Valentinian pleroma and the structure of the ‘Great Notice’ and eleven indices conclude the volume. No one interested in the history of Gnosticism and of second-century Christian theology should neglect this important monograph.