Note 165 — BOOK VI SIMON MAGUS, VALENTINUS, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS

Of the sources from which the author of the Philosophumena drew this account of Valentinus’ doctrine, much has been written. Hilgenfeld in his Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums, and Lipsius in the article “Valentinus” in Smith & Wace’s D.C.B., agree that its main source is the writings of Heracleon. Cruice, Études sur les Philosophumena, on the other hand, thinks it largely composed of extracts from a work of Valentinus himself, entitled Sophia. Salmon (Hermathena, 1885, p. 391), while not committing himself to a definite pronouncement as to the writer quoted, says that Hippolytus undoubtedly quoted from a genuine Valentinian treatise, and that this last is above the suspicion of forgery with which he is inclined to view other quotations in the Philosophumena.