Valentinus (A.D. 100–65), Christian gnostic teacher. He was born in Alexandria, where he taught until he moved to Rome in 135. A dualist, he constructed an elaborate cosmology in which God the Father (Bythos, or Deep Unknown) unites the the feminine Silence (Sige) and in the overflow of love produces thirty successive divine emanations (or aeons) constituting the Pleroma (fullness of the Godhead). Each emanation is arranged hierarchically with a graded existence, becoming progressively further removed from the Father and hence less divine. The lowest emanation, Sophia (wisdom), yields to passion and seeks to reach, beyond her ability, to the Father, which causes her fall. In the process, she causes the creation of the material universe (wherein resides evil) and the loss of divine sparks from the Pleroma. The divine elements are embodied in those humans who are the elect. Jesus Christ is an aeon close to the Father and is sent to retrieve the souls into the heavenly Pleroma. Valentinus wrote a gospel. His sect stood out in the early church for ordaining women priests and prophetesses. See also BASILIDES , GNOSTICIS. L.P.P.