Note 400 — Chapter IX · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: VALENTINUS

Amélineau, Gnost. Ég. p. 226. The Excerpta Theodoti, on which he relies, says (fr. 78): Μέχρι τοῦ βαπτίσματος οὖν ἡ εἱμαρμένη, φασίν, ἀληθής· μετὰ δὲ τοῦτο οὐκ ἔτι ἀληθεύουσιν οἱ ἀστρολόγοι. Ἔστι δὲ οὐ τὸ λουτρὸν μόνον τὸ ἐλευθεροῦν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ γνῶσις τίνες ἦμεν, τί γεγόναμεν, ποῦ ἦμεν, ἢ ποῦ ἐνεβλήθημεν, ποῦ σπεύδομεν, πόθεν λυτρούμεθα, τί γέννησις τί ἀναγέννησις. “Until baptism then, they say the destiny [he is talking of that which is foretold by the stars] holds good; but thereafter the astrologers’ predictions are no longer unerring. For the [baptismal] font not only sets us free, but is also the Gnosis which teaches us what we are, why we have come into being, where we are, or whither we have been cast up, whither we are hastening, from what we have been redeemed, why there is birth, and why re-birth.” For baptism was to the Valentinian initiation, and a mystagogue of Eleusis would have expressed himself no differently.