Walentynianie w Egipcie w IV wieku n.e.
Valentinians in fourth-century Egypt

Summary/Abstract: In Egypt, the groups sharing the interpretation of the Christianity which could be labeled as Valentinian are to be traced back to the middle of the 2nd century. Later, deep into the 3rd and 4th century, the evidence relating to them appears, however, scant and indirect. Although Epiphanius of Salamis gave in his Panarion rather extensive presentation of ‘Valentinian’ topography, his relation – as in many other cases – meets with serious scholarly scepticism. Nevertheless, Epiphanius’ direct knowledge of the Delta finds corroboration in his widely ignored Vita, replete with literary topoi, but clearly independent from Panarion. Epiphanius’ account could be supported also by a careful analysis of the Valentinian corpus from the Nag Hammadi library. Examination of its content and arrangement as well as its language diversity, paleography and codicology shows that at the initial stage it was formed from at least five independent sources. Taking into account that the translations into Coptic were made no earlier than at the turn of the 3rd and 4th century, we can safely assume that only one or two generations spanned between translators and Epiphanius. Translators themselves had to be regarded as Christians of Valentinian orientation, because it would be hardly likely that non-believers working independently in many places undertook considerable effort of translating the texts, contents of which they had not accepted. It does not mean however, that there were Valentinian communities separated from the church (or even that that they know the name of Valentinus himself), but only that there were groups (probably isolated one from another) of Christians inclined to the interpretation of the Scriptures and the tradition labelled both by their ancient adversaries and modern scholars as Valentinian.

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