Over the past few decades Einar Thomassen has emerged as one of the most prominent scholars on Valentinian Christianity, playing a leading role in both European and North American contexts in Nag Hammadi and Gnostic studies. With this book he brings together his life's work, offering a grand synthesis of his understanding of Valentinianism along with exciting new directions for further work on this significant movement of the second to fourth century. Thomassen is convinced that after a half century of intense scholarship, we are now at a stage where a completely fresh reconstruction of Valentinianism can be, and needs to be made. Indeed, this book sets out to supersede François Sagnard classic work, La Gnose valentinienne et le témoignage de saint Irénée (Paris 1947). As the author states (p. 1), his goal is to ‘give a coherent account of “Valentinianism” by making full use of all the sources now available’ (i.e. the Nag Hammadi sources along with the church Fathers) in order to ‘integrate them into an overall interpretation of the history and doctrines of the Valentinians’.
This ambitious goal is set forth in five parts (‘Valentinianism east and west’; ‘Three dimensions of Valentinianism’; ‘Valentinian protology’; ‘Valentinian initiation’; and ‘Valentinus and the “Valentinians”’), centred on a completely new understanding of the eastern and western divisions in Valentinianism. Understanding of two major branches of Valentinianism is largely indebted to Hippolytus, Haer. vi. 35.5–7 (the existence of two branches is attested, but not clarified in Tertullian, Val. 11.2). For Hippolytus, and most scholars, the separation in Valentinianism is over differing Christologies: the western arguing that the Saviour's body was psychic and infused with a pneumatic quality at baptism (‘Possession Christology’), whereas the eastern articulated a purely spiritual understanding of the Saviour as coming to earth via Mary where it received its form but not its essence. By a close analysis of, especially, the Tripartite tractate and the Excerpts of Theodotus, Thomassen challenges Hippolytus' understanding of Valentinian theologies, relegating this doctrinal division to simply reflecting on an internal conflict within western Valentinianism. Freeing the two branches of this movement from Hippolytus' descriptions, Thomassen constructs an alternative understanding of the east–west divide. Both branches include a psychic quality in their Christologies, but understand the function differently. For the eastern Valentinians, the Saviour shares the suffering condition of the pneumatics through the incarnation in order to exchange the pneumatics' material condition for their spiritual counterpart (Thomassen refers to this soteriology as mutual participation). In western Valentinian systems, there is a shift away from redeeming the spirituals (as they are already saved by nature) to a soteriological processes focused toward the salvation of the psychics. Consequently, a theology of mutual participation, with Christological suffering, is dropped in the west (though remnants of the eastern theologies are discernable in western theologies). Thomassen claims that the eastern systems are to be given historical priority, with the western as developments or deviations from the eastern. He further identifies all the Nag Hammadi sources that are potentially Valentinian as eastern. The building blocks for Valentinian theology, as explored in part ii and then explicated further in parts iii and iv, is the intersection of salvation history, protology and ritual. Insightful reappraisals of the pleromatologies in particular emerge: type A protologies (where individual aeonic beings are externalised manifestations from the Father; furthermore, only one Sophia figure is present in the cosmic drama; this type is typical of eastern Valentinianism) and type B protologies (where we have the theory of thirty syzygy-related aeons, well-known from Irenaeus and Hippolytus, and present in A Valentinian exposition; furthermore, we find a development of a higher and lower Sophia in this system; this type is typical of western Valentinianism). In addressing Valentinus, Thomassen believes that while he was certainly not a ‘Valentinian’, later Valentinian theologies are indebted to and thus standing in continuity with much of Valentinus' teachings. Indeed, in an extensive discussion of Valentinus' fragments, Thomassen identifies the eastern tradition as standing very close to Valentinus' teachings (contra Christoph Markschies). In a closing chapter, Thomassen very briefly sketches out a history of Valentinianism along the lines of specific Valentinian teachers from the second to fourth centuries.
Even before its publication, this book was being hailed as the most important work on Valentinianism in the past sixty years, a comment that is also to be found on the back cover, quoting Birger Pearson. While it is certainly an important study, written by a leading scholar on the subject, it does not meet the (perhaps excessive) expectations that had been advanced. I appreciate Thomassen's careful articulation of Valentinian doctrines and rituals, and find invaluable gems throughout the book (for example mutual participation as a central soteriological concept; the protologies, especially as elucidated with an embryological model on pages 307–13). However, there are several methodological difficulties that are inescapable. First, there is the treatment of sources. One searches in vain for a preliminary delimitation of a corpus of Valentinian sources. This omission problematises the very treatment of the primary sources (for example some works are ignored or barely mentioned, while others are given preferential treatment throughout the book). Consequently, the central role played by Theodotus and the Tripartite tractate for constructing a preferred understanding of eastern Valentinianism is not persuasive. This lack of attention to establishing the sources, furthermore, is frustrating given Thomassen's earlier work on this very question in an essay published in 1995 (listed in the bibliography but not fleshed out in the book) (‘Notes pour la délimitation d'un corpus Valentinien à Nag Hammadi’, in Louis Painchaud and Anne Pasquier [eds], Les Texts de Nag Hammadi et le problème de leur classification: Actes du colloque tenu à Québec du 15 au 19 Septembre 1993, Quebec–Louvain–Paris 1995, 243–59). Indeed, Thomassen's work on this question is arguably the most sophisticated on Valentinian sources. Without this basic step in historical work, I find his entire hypothesis tenuous even if tantalising.
Secondly, Thomassen fails to engage social processes in Valentinianism. Discussions of community formations, inter- and intra-group dynamics, gender roles and cultural accommodation or resistance are all lacking. Given the rising appreciation for ancient social history – not only in classics, archaeology and ancient history, but also in early Christian studies – this lack of attention is disappointing. While appreciating Valentinianism as a set of (intersecting) intellectual or theological currents, Thomassen does not elucidate how this form of early Christianity fits within its broader cultural context (apart from its philosophical context, which is done admirably). Rather, we are offered a systematic theology (or theologies) of Valentinianism. The closest we get to an historical or social appreciation of Valentinianism is with Valentinian initiation and the relationship of Valentinus to various Valentinian teachers. Yet, even in discussing ritual the central concern is not group interaction but soteriological processes. Again, this dearth of attention is frustrating in that Thomassen has published elsewhere a fascinating social analysis of second-century Rome, locating Valentinians within a shift from decentralised to centralised power structures (‘Orthodoxy and heresy in second-century Rome’, HTR lxxxxvii/3 [2004], 241–56). While this article is briefly touched upon in the concluding chapter of his book, its insights are not brought to bear upon our understanding of Valentinianism.
Thirdly, there is a serious problem in Thomassen's argumentation and selective treatment of scholarship. Throughout the book there is an odd mixture of prolonged arguments (sometimes points are unnecessarily drawn out, such as the embryological reading of the Tripartite tractate) and dismissive treatments of opposing views (coupled with unsubstantiated assertions or constructed logical problems that likely were not problematic for the ancient writers). The result is a misbalanced treatment of the sources and issues. There is also a great deal of forced exegesis in the book, where theological continuity is imposed upon the sources. Such interpretations are evident in the treatment of Valentinus' fragments, which are read through the lens of later Valentinian doctrines and thus seen as the inspiration for those doctrines (for example in fragment 4, where mutual participation is forced onto a text that otherwise does not necessarily present such a soteriology; even Thomassen recognises that the fit is not perfect). Such anachronistic and circular readings are classic historical fallacies. I was also surprised to see that many scholars were ignored in this book, typically those who advocate discussions of ethics, social dynamics or genre analysis, all of which are unimportant for Thomassen. Most notable are Michel Desjardins (his extensive study of sin in Valentinianism, as well as on Valentinian family structures), Ismo Dunderberg (whose recent work has opened exciting new perspectives into social and mythical aspects of Valentinianism), Henry Green (whose sociological approach to Valentinianism is still a needed challenge), Deidre Good (on the Sophia myth), along with a highly selective treatment of Elaine Pagels (specifically on ecclesiastical power struggles) and John Turner (especially his classic essay on Valentinian ritual). For a book that is being both marketed and accepted as the most comprehensive treatment of Valentinianism to date on historical and doctrinal matters, such inclusion is needed. Indeed, it would have been advantageous to include a survey of scholarship on Valentinianism, thereby offering a true synthesis of scholarly work on the subject.
My criticisms aside, this book is an important contribution and will certainly shape the debates over this Christian movement for at least the next decade. It effectively locates Valentinian theology within the intellectual trends of the second to fourth centuries, offering a fresh and coherent picture of one of the most important forms of early Christianity. Despite the strengths of this work, however, it does not fulfil the expectations of the grand synthesis that it has been heralded as being. But if not the final word on Valentinianism, Thomassen's work will certainly inspire new and vigorous explorations into this religious tradition.
