Note 541 — Chapter X · THE SYSTEM OF THE PISTIS SOPHIA AND ITS RELATED TEXTS[459]

Astrological doctrine first becomes prominent in Gnostic teaching in the Excerpta Theodoti which we owe to Clement of Alexandria. We may therefore put their date about the year 200. This would be after the time of Valentinus himself, but agrees well with what M. Cumont (Astrology and Religion, pp. 96 sqq.) says as to the great vogue which astrology attained in Rome under the Severi. Its intrusion into the Valentinian doctrines is much more marked in the Μέρος τευχῶν Σωτῆρος than in the Pistis Sophia, and more in the Bruce Papyrus than in either.