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 Honestate, Conversatione Ecclesiasticorum et Continentium," which was the model for much subsequent legislation. (Cf. the commentary of Godefroy, Theod. Cod. t. vi. p. 54, where all contemporary notices of this law are collected.) The legislative activity of Valentinian in every direction was very great, as shewn by the Theodosian Code.

Other modern authorities are Clinton's Fasti, i. 460, and appendix, pp. 110-119, where is an exhaustive statement of all his legislation, together with notices of medals, coins, etc., bearing on his reign, and De Broglie's L'Eglise et l'Empire Romain, pt. iii. c. i.

[G.T.S.]

Valentinianus (2) II., emperor, 375–392, son of Valentinian I. and of Justina, his second wife. For his secular life see D. of G. and R. Biogr. His name is celebrated in church history in connexion with two matters: (1) An attempt in 384 by the Roman Senate to restore the altar of Victory and the pagan rites connected with the Senate. We possess the document Relatio Symmachi Urbis Praefecti on the one side and the Epp. xvii. and xviii. of St. Ambrose to Valentinian on the other (cf. St. Ambr. opp. Migne, Patr. Lat. t. xvi. col. 962–982 ). St. Ambrose carried the day, and the senatorial petition was rejected, as again in 391 (see Tillem. Emp. v. 244, 300, 349). (2) The other matter concerned the necessity of baptism. Valentinian died at Vienne in Gaul, being then about 20, and only a catechumen. Being anxious to receive baptism, he sent for St. Ambrose to baptize him. Before the sacrament could be administered, he was found dead. St. Ambrose's treatise, de Obitu Valentiniani Consolatio, §§ 51–56, shews how Ambrose rose superior to any hard mechanical view of the sacraments and recognized the sincere will and desire as equivalent to the deed (cf. Tillem. Emp. v. 356; De Broglie, L’Eglise et l’Empire, pt. Iii. cc. v. and viii.). At one time Valentinian was inclined to support the Arian party at Milan, influenced by his mother Justina, who was bitterly hostile to St. Ambrose. Sozomen (H. E. vii. 13), followed by Ceillier (v. 386), represents Valentinian and the empress as persecuting St. Ambrose and the Catholics of Milan in 386, referring to ''Cod. Theod.'' lib. Xvi. tit. i. leg. 4. [; .]

[G.T.S.]

Valentinianus (3) III., emperor, 425–455, the son of Constantius III. by Galla Placidia, daughter of Theodosius the Great and consequently great-grandson of Valentinian I. For his civil history see D. of G. and R. Biogr. His reign was signalized by several laws bearing on church matters. At its very beginning (July 17, 425) there was issued at Aquileia in his name a decree (Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. v. l. 62 ), expelling all heretics and schismatics from Rome. A special provision ordered the adherents of Eulalius, elected anti-pope in 419, to be removed to the 100th milestone from the city. This law has been illustrated at great length by Gothofred, t. vi. 204. Identical laws (tit. v. 11. 63, 64) were issued for the other cities of Italy and for Africa in 425, and also edicts (lib. xvi. tit. ii. ll. 46 and 47) renewing clerical privileges and reserving clerical offenders to the tribunal of the bishops alone, a rule which he abrogated later. In tit. vii. of the same bk. is a law against apostates dated Ravenna Apr. 7, 426, depriving them of all testamentary power. On the next day a law was enacted (tit. viii. l. 28) preventing Jews from disinheriting their children who became Christians. The most interesting portion of his ecclesiastical legislation is in his Novels embodied in Ritter's appendix to Gothofred's great work (Lip. 1743, t. vi. pt. ii. pp. 105–133). Thus tit. ii p. 106, 445, treats of the Manicheans and gives particulars as to the action of pope Leo the Great against them; tit. v. p. 111, 447, of the violations of sepulchres, with severe penalties against such crimes, of which the clergy themselves were frequently guilty. Tit. xii. p. 127, 452, his most celebrated law, is an anticipation of medieval legislation; it withdraws the clergy from the episcopal courts and subjects them to lay judges. Baronius (Annals, 451) heartily abuses Valentinian for this law, and considers Attila's invasion a direct and immediate expression of Heaven's anger.

[G.T.S.]

Valentinus (1) (Οὐαλεντῖνος), founder of one of the Gnostic sects which originated in the first half of 2nd cent.

I.  Biography.—According to the tradition of the Valentinian school witnessed to by Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. vii. 17, 106, p. 898, Potter), Valentinus had been a disciple of Theodas, who himself, it is very improbably said, knew St. Paul. Valentinus cannot have begun to disseminate his Gnostic doctrines till towards the end of the reign of Hadrian (117–138). Before this he is said to have been a Catholic Christian. It must have been, therefore, at most only shortly before his appearance as the head of a Gnostic sect that Valentinus became a hearer of Theodas and received, as he said, his doctrines from him. The Gnostics were fond of claiming for their secret doctrines apostolic tradition and tracing them back to disciples of the apostles. To this otherwise unknown Theodas the Valentinians appealed as an authority in much the same way as Basilides was said to have been a disciple of Glaucias, and he, in turn, an "interpreter of Peter."

Irenaeus (i. 11, 1) speaks of Valentinus as the first who transformed the doctrines of the Gnostic "Heresy" to a peculiar doctrinal system of his own (εἰς ἴδιον χαρακτῃρα διδασκαλείου). By the expression γνωστικὴ we understand a party which called themselves "Gnostics," whom we may recognize in the so-called Ophites, described by Irenaeus i. 30), when he remarks that the Valentinian school originated from those unnamed heretics as from the many-headed Lernean Hydra (i. 30, 15). Concerning the home and locality of these so-called "Gnostics" Irenaeus tells us nothing. But we know from other sources that those Ophite parties to whom he refers had their homes both in Egypt and Syria.

Concerning the fatherland of Valentinus himself Epiphanius is the first to give accurate information, which, however, he derived simply, it appears, from oral tradition (Epiph. Haer. xxxi. 2). According to this his native home was on the coast of Egypt, and he received instruction in Greek literature and science at Alexandria. Epiphanius, who makes him begin to teach in Egypt, relates