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 between them, Gratian taking the trans-Alpine provinces, whilst Italy, Illyricum in part, and Africa were to be under the rule of Valentinian, or rather of his mother, Justina. Justina was an Arian, and the imperial court at Milan pitted itself against the Catholics, under the famous Ambrose, bishop of that city. But so great was his popularity that the court was decidedly worsted in the contest, and the emperor’s authority materially shaken. In 387 (q.v.), who had commanded a Roman army in Britain, and had in 383 (the year of Gratian’s death) made himself master of the northern provinces, crossed the Alps into the valley of the Po and threatened Milan. The emperor and his mother fled to Theodosius, the emperor of the East and husband of Galla, Valentinian’s sister. Valentinian was restored in 388 by Theodosius, through whose influence he was converted to Orthodox Catholicism. Four years later he was murdered at Vienne in Gaul, probably at the instigation of his Frankish general Arbogast, with whom he had quarrelled.

VALENTINIAN III., emperor of the West from 425 to 455, the son of Constantius and Placidia, daughter of the great Theodosius. He was only six years of age when he received the title of Augustus, and during his minority the conduct of affairs was in the hands of his mother, who purposely neglected his education. His reign is marked by the dismemberment of the Western Empire; the conquest of the province of Africa by the Vandals in 439; the final abandonment of Britain in 446; the loss of great portions of Spain and Gaul, in which the barbarians had established themselves; and the ravaging of Sicily and of the western coasts of the Mediterranean by the fleets of Genseric. As a set-off against these calamities there was the great victory of Aetius over Attila in 451 near Chalôns, and his successful campaigns against the Visigoths in southern Gaul (426, 429, 436), and against various invaders on the Rhine and Danube (428–31). The burden of taxation became more and more intolerable as the power of Rome decreased, and the loyalty of her remaining provinces was seriously impaired in consequence. Ravenna was Valentinian’s usual residence; but he fled to Rome on the approach of Attila, who, after ravaging the north of Italy, died in the following year (453). In 454 Aëtius, between whose son and a daughter of the emperor a marriage had been arranged, was treacherously murdered by Valentinian. Next year, however, the emperor himself was assassinated by two of the barbarian followers of Aetius. He not merely lacked the ability to govern the empire in a time of crisis, but aggravated its dangers by his self-indulgence and vindictiveness.

VALENTINOIS, the name of a countship in France, the chief town of which was Valence (Drôme). From the 12th to the 15th century Valentinois belonged to a family of Poitiers, which must not be confused with that of the counts of Poitiers. To the detriment of his kinsmen, the lords of St Vallier, Count Louis II. (d. 1419) bequeathed his counties of Valentinois and Diois to the Dauphin Charles, afterwards King Charles VII.; and in 1498 Louis XII. erected the countship of Valentinois into a duchy, and gave it to Caesar Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. A few years later Borgia was deprived of the duchy, which, in 1548, was given by Henry II. to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, a descendant of the counts of Valentinois. Having again reverted to the Crown, the duchy was given by Louis XIII. to Honoré Grimaldi, prince of Monaco, whose descendants retained it until the French Revolution. The new duchy of Valentinois, however, did not consist of the lands attached to the former one, but was made up of several scattered lordships in Dauphine. The title of duke of Valentinois is still borne by the prince of Monaco.

VALENTINUS, pope for thirty or fourty days in 827, in succession to Eugenius II. (824–27). He was a Roman by birth, and, according to the Liber Pontificalis, was first made a deacon by Paschal I. (817–24). Nothing further is known of his history. His successor was Gregory IV. (827–44).

VALENTINUS and THE VALENTINIANS. I. Valentinus, the most prominent leader of the Gnostic movement, was born, according to Epiphanius (Haer. 31, 2), near the coast in Lower Egypt, and was brought up and educated in Alexandria. He then went to Rome, as we learn from Irenaeus, Adv. haer. iii. 4, 3; Valentinus came to Rome during the episcopate of Hyginus, flourished under Pius and stayed till the time of Anicetus. The duration of the episcopates of the Roman bishops at this period is not absolutely established, but we can hardly go altogether wrong if, with Harnack (Chronologie der altchristlichen Literatur, i. 291), we fix the period 135–60 for Valentinus’s residence in Rome. This is confirmed by the fact that Justin Martyr in his Apology, 1. 26, begun about 150, mentions that in his earlier work against heresy, the Syntagma, he attacked, among others, Valentinus; so that his heresy must have begun to appear at least as early as 140. According to Irenaeus iii. 3, 4, Polycarp, during his sojourn in Rome under the episcopate of Anicetus, converted a few adherents of the Valentinian sect. Tertullian (Adv . Valentin. cap. 4) declares that Valentinus came to Rome as an adherent of the orthodox Church, and was a candidate for the bishopric of Rome, but he abandoned the Church because a confessor was preferred to him for this office. The credibility of this statement may be questioned. There is nothing impossible in it, but it has rather the appearance of a piece of the usual church gossip. Great uncertainty attaches to the residence of Valentinus in Cyprus, recorded by Epiphanius (loc. cit.), who places it after his stay in Rome, adding that it was here that he definitely accomplished his secession from the Church. Scholars are divided as to whether this stay in Cyprus was before or after that in Rome. But on the whole it seems to be clear from the various notices that Valentinus did not, e.g. like Marcion, break with the Church from the very beginning, but endeavoured as long as possible to maintain his standing within it.

II. The authorities which we have to consider deal for the most part with Valentinianism in its fully developed form, and not with the original teaching of the master. Justin’s Syntagma (v.s.), which treats of Valentinus, is unfortunately lost. Irenaeus in his section i. 11, 1—3, has preserved what is obviously an older document, possibly from Justin, dealing with Valentinus’s own teaching and that of two of his disciples. The sketch which he gives is the best guide for the original form of Valentinianism. For Valentinus himself we have also to consider the fragments of his writings preserved by Clemens Alexandrinus. The best edition of and commentary on them is Hilgenfeld’s Ketzergeschichte des Urchristentums (pp. 293–307). Irenaeus in his treatise Adv. hoer. gives a detailed account of the two chief schools following Valentinus, the school of Ptolemaeus (i. 1—10), and Marcus and the Marcosians (i. 13—21). For his account of the Ptolemaeans, Irenaeus seems to have used various writings and expositions of the school, especially prominent being a collection of Scripture proofs which may have once had a separate literary existence (i. 1, 3; 3, 1—5 (6); 8, 2—4). To this work is appended in a somewhat disconnected fashion a commentary on the prologue to the fourth Gospel (i. 8, 5). Irenaeus himself twice prefaces his remarks by saying he is indebted to other authorities for his exposition (i. 2, 3—4; 7, 2–5). Section 6, 2—4, interrupts and disturbs the continuity, and section 5, 1—3, is a duplicate of 5, 4. We see how the account of Irenaeus is built up from small fragments. In his account of Marcus and the Marcosians the chapters on the sacraments (i. 13 and 20) seem originally to have formed part of the same whole. Very valuable too are the Excerpta ex Theodoto which are to be found in the works of Clemens Alexandrinus, and may be looked upon as a collection made by the author with a view to the eighth book of his Stromateis, which was never finished. Of these excerpts paragraphs 4, 5, 8–15, 17b—20, 27, should be distinguished as Clemens’s own observations; the remaining parts are extracted from Gnostic writings (cf. Zahn, Geschichte des Kanons, ii. pp . 269 seq.). Yet the Excerpta, as their