Terminology V

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Terminology V

Valentianism
Vulgate, Latin

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Valentianism

The teachings of Valentinus, the best known and most influential of the Gnostic heretics. He was trained in Hellenistic science in Alexandria. Like many other heretical teachers he went to Rome the better, perhaps to disseminate his views. He arrived there during the pontificate of Hyginus and remained until the pontificate of Anicetus. During a sojourn of perhaps fifteen years, though he had in the beginning allied himself with the orthodox community in Rome, he was guilty of attempting to establish his heretical system. His errors led to his excommunication, after which he repaired to Cyprus where he resumed his activities as a teacher and where he died probably about 160 or 161. Valentinus professed to have derived his ideas from Theodas or Theudas, a disciple of St. Paul, but his system is obviously an attempt to amalgamate Greek and Oriental speculations of the most fantastic kind with Christian ideas. He was especially indebted to Plato. From him was derived the parallel between the ideal world (the pleroma) and the lower world of phenomena (the kenoma). Valentinus drew freely on some books of the New Testament, but used a strange system of interpretation by which the sacred authors were made responsible for his own cosmological and pantheistic views. In working out his system he was thoroughly dominated by dualistic fancies.

Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 15: Tournely-Zwirner

Vulgate, Latin

The translation of the Bible by Jerome (342-430) from Greek and Hebrew originals into the common Latin of the day. Jerome worked on this translation in Bethlehem from 384-406, almost 25 years. All Roman Catholic Bibles are translated from the Latin Vulgate, the official text of that church. The Gutenberg Bible of 1456, the first book ever printed on a printing press, was a printing of the Vulgate.

Source: The Compact Dictionary of Doctrinal Words by Terry L. Miethe

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