Note 166 — BOOK VI SIMON MAGUS, VALENTINUS, AND THEIR FOLLOWERS

The notice of the followers, real or supposed, of Valentinus which occupies the remainder of Book VI adds little to our previous knowledge of their doctrines, being taken almost verbatim from the work of Hippolytus’ teacher, St. Irenæus. It is noteworthy, however, that although the Table of Contents promises us an account of (among others) Heracleon, nothing is here said of him, although that shrewd critic of the Gospels was thought worthy of refutation by Origen some fifty years later. Yet Hippolytus mentions Heracleon as being with Ptolemy a leader of the Italic School of Valentinians which seems to dispose of the theory advanced by Lipsius (Smith & Wace’s D.C.B., s. v. “Valentinus”) that Heracleon was the author from whom Hippolytus took his account of Valentinus’ own doctrine. Of Secundus nothing more is known than is set down in the text, while the “Epiphanes” here mentioned is thought by some to be not a name, but an adjective, so that the passage would read “a certain illustrious teacher of theirs.” This was certainly the reading of Irenæus’ Latin translator, who renders the word by “clarus.” Is this a roundabout way of describing Heracleon? As to this see Salmon in D.C.B., s. v. “Heracleon.”