Valentinus
<p ><b>Valentinus</b> (also spelled <b>Valentinius</b>; <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circa" title="Circa" >c.</a>100 – c.160) was the best known and for a time most successful <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Christianity" title="Early Christianity" >early Christian</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism" title="Gnosticism" >gnostic</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology" title="Theology" >theologian</a>. He founded his school in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome" title="Rome" >Rome</a>. According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullian" title="Tertullian" >Tertullian</a>, Valentinus was a candidate for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop" title="Bishop" >bishop</a> of Rome but started his own group when another was chosen.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus_(Gnostic)#cite_note-1" >[1]</a></sup>
Valentinus produced a variety of writings, but only fragments survive, largely those embedded in refuted quotations in the works of his opponents, not enough to reconstruct his system except in broad outline.<sup id="cite_ref-Oxford_2-0" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus(Gnostic)#cite_note-Oxford-2" >[2]</a></sup> His doctrine is known to us only in the developed and modified form given to it by his disciples.<sup id="cite_ref-Oxford_2-1" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus(Gnostic)#cite_note-Oxford-2" >[2]</a></sup> He taught that there were three kinds of people, the spiritual, psychical, and material; and that only those of a spiritual nature (his own followers) received the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosis" title="Gnosis" >gnosis</a></i> (knowledge) that allowed them to return to the divine <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleroma" title="Pleroma" >Pleroma</a>, while those of a psychic nature (ordinary Christians) would attain a lesser form of salvation, and that those of a material nature (pagans and Jews) were doomed to perish.<sup id="cite_ref-Oxford_2-2" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus(Gnostic)#cite_note-Oxford-2" >[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus(Gnostic)#cite_note-3" >[3]</a></sup>
Valentinus had a large following, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinianism" title="Valentinianism" >Valentinians</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-Oxford_2-3" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus(Gnostic)#cite_note-Oxford-2" >[2]</a></sup> It later divided into an Eastern and a Western or Italian branch.<sup id="cite_ref-Oxford_2-4" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus(Gnostic)#cite_note-Oxford-2" >[2]</a></sup> The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcosians" title="Marcosians" >Marcosians</a> belonged to the Western branch.<sup id="cite_ref-Oxford_2-5" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentinus_(Gnostic)#cite_note-Oxford-2" >[2]</a></sup>
<sup id="cite_ref-Oxford_2-5" class="reference" > </sup>
</p>