Ptolemy (gnostic)

Ptolemy was a pupil of the Christian- Gnostic teacher Valentinus and with Herakleon of the main representatives of the Italian or western school of Valentinian Gnosticism.

Irenaeus of Lyons announced that he had much of his knowledge of the Gnostics of students of Ptolemy.

Life

Very little is known about Ptolemy's life. According to Irenaeus, he was a disciple of Valentinus and the time of the writing of Adversus haereses ( 180 ) still alive. He was active in Rome, Italy and southern France.

Adolf von Harnack identified the Gnostics Ptolemy with a martyr of the same name, mentions Justin Martyr. This martyr Ptolemy died in 152 in Rome.

Works

The only surviving work of Ptolemy is a letter to his otherwise unknown student Flora in which Ptolemy treats the origin of the law of the Old Testament. It is narrated by Epiphanius of Salamis ( Adversus haereses 33.3 to 7 ).

Teaching

Information on Ptolemy's theory provides Irenaeus of Lyon.

According to Ptolemy's opinion of the Decalogue can be attributed neither to the highest God nor the devil, the laws do not come from a single God. However, part of it is the work of God deeper. Another part comes from Moses and a third of the elders of the Jewish people. Ptolemy divides the Decalogue into three parts one: The performance by the Redeemer, the mixture of law with evil and the area that points to the higher world.

In his system, the origin of the world Ptolemy describes an extensive system of eons, which are assumed by a spiritual force. Thirty of these aeons are the higher world, the Pleroma. This system is based on a biblical exegesis, who discovered the first eight eons in the prologue of John's Gospel.