Marcion taught that the god of the Old Testament was not the true God but rather that the true and higher God had been revealed only with Jesus Christ. Marcion wrote the Antitheses to show the differences between the god of the Old Testament and the true God. Marcion was excommunicated from the Roman church…

https://blogs.uoregon.edu/rel424s15drreis/valentinus/https://www.jstor.org/stable/1584312The Original Doctrine of Valentinus the Gnostic by Gilles Quispel Over the past twenty-five years, the social and ethical aspects of Gnosticism have won increased attention. Scholars have tended to shift away from phenomenological approaches to Gnosticism, which maintained a strict demarcation between ethics and cosmological speculation. Rather, scholars have increasingly recognized and explored social…

http://www.gnosis.org/library/valentinus/http://www.gnosis.org/valentinus.htmhttp://www.ntcanon.org/Valentinus.shtmlhttps://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/easter.htmlhttp://web.archive.org/web/20080413111527/http://www.bartleby.com/65/va/Valentns.html(vlnt´ns) (KEY) , fl. c.135–c.160, founder of the Valentinians, the most celebrated of the Gnostic sects (see Gnosticism) of the 2d cent. The little that is known of his life is found in the works of early Christian theologians who refuted him, such as St. Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria. Probably born in Egypt, Valentinus…

The following text is excerpted from Bentley Layton in The Gnostic Scriptures (Doubleday 1987), pp. 225-227. The text comes from Irenaeus’ Adv. Haer. 1.11.1 and is quoted by Epiphanius in his Against Heresies 31.32.2-9. Please refer to Layton for background, bibliography, and notes:Relation to gnostic myth (a) Valentinus adapted the fundamental principles of the so-called…

The text attributed to the second century Gnostic Valentinus called “On the Three Natures,” known to us in a single reference from the fourth century, Marcellus of Ancyra, has at least three possibilities regarding its composition: Valentinus is, more or less, one of the first Trinitarians.Valentinus wrote something misunderstood by Marcellus of Ancyra, or known…

Valentinus (1) (Βαλεντῖνος), founder of one of the Gnostic sects which originated in the first half of 2nd cent.Biography:According to the tradition of the Valentinian school witnessed to by Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. vii. 17, 106, p. 898, Potter), Valentinus had been a disciple of Theodas, who himself, it is very improbably said, knew St. Paul.…

Bentley Layton writes (The Gnostic Scriptures, p. 217): Valentinus (A.D. ca. 100-ca. 175) was born in the Egyptian Delta, at Phrenobis (see Map 4). He enjoyed the good fortune of a Greek education in the nearby metropolis of Alexandria, the world capital of Hellenistic culture. In Alexandria he probably met the Christian philosopher Basilides (see…

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25208413Buddhist Gnosticism, the System of Basilides by J. Kennedy https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789047407867/B9789047407867-s002.xml https://www.ccel.org/ccel/wace/biodict.html?term=Basilides%2C+Gnostic+sect+founder FULL BIOGRAPHY OF BASILIDEShttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/abs/art-xvbuddhist-gnosticism-the-system-of-basilides/B8B9A266203937B7B5ADD30803193E1CTwo questions, the early contact of Buddhism with Christianity, and the origins and character of Gnosticism, have attracted much attention of late Although these questions are independent of each other in the main, they happen to join hands in the case…

Irenaeus gives the following account of the doctrines of Basilides in Against Heresies, Book I, Chapter 24, sections 3-7: Basilides again, that he may appear to have discovered something more sublime and plausible, gives an immense development to his doctrines. He sets forth that Nous was first born of the unborn father, that from him,…

F. F. Bruce writes (Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 87):Then there is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which purports to describe the doings of Jesus in his boyhood. Jesus proves to be an infant prodigy at school, instructing his teachers in the unsuspected mysteries of the alphabet; he astounds his family…