Valentinian Literature
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14. The Gospel of Truth VALENTINIAN LITERATURE
I he Gospel of Truth, a work of consummate artistry, is an early
I discourse on Christian gnostic mysticism and remains a key
JH philosophical and literary document in the history of Valentinian
gnostic speculation. Incorporating much of the technical language of Valen-
tinian gnosticism, the Gospel of Truth presents its ideas in a nontechnical way
as the proclamation of the meaning of Jesus for Valentinian Christians. This is
a pivotal work, reinterpreting Jewish apocalyptic Christianity as Jewish gnos-
tic Christianity. A deeply gnostic tractate, seminally influenced by Johannine
literature, the Gospel of Truth maps a way of knowing the father through the
word of gnosis, which is mystical knowledge.
Written in Greek in the mid-second century, between about 140 and 180
CE, the Gospel of Truth was found among the documents at Nag Hammadi in
Egypt and exists in its totality in Coptic translation. In addition, Irenaeus
refers to a Gospel of Truth read among Valentinians in his tract Against Here-
sies 3.11.9-
Scholars have advanced arguments for assigning the work to Valentinos
himself, rather than to one of his students. Valentinos, a mediator between
gnosticized and traditional Christianity, was born in Alexandria and from
about 135 practiced his gnostic interpretation of Christianity in Rome. Al-
though Valentinians were attacked by traditional Christians for their mythic
theology as early as 160, they did not initially separate on their own from
Christians, and some held ecclesiastical ranks in the Roman church. They
called themselves the students of Christ, were largely from the middle and
lower classes, and resembled other Christians in many respects.