Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/936

* VALENTINIANS. 800 VALERIAN. VALENTINIANS. A Gnostic sect or school, founded by Valeiitinus, who went from Alex- andria to Rome about-A.D. 1-10 and died there, or in Cyprus, about l(iO. They recoj;nized heatlicn- ism as a- preparatory stage of Christianity, and divided the higherspiritual world into fifteen pairs of aeons, each consisting of a male and a female. The first pair, or syzygy, is made up of Bythos, or God in himself, and Ennoia. or God as exist- ing in his own thoughts; from the.se emanated next Nous (Intelligence) and Aletheia (Truth), and so on. As the last aeon, Sophia (Wisdom), transgressed the bounds that had been laid down by the a'On Horos, and a part of her being became lost in Chaos, there was formed a crude being, called Achamoth, which, tlirough the Demiurgos that emanated from it, created the corporeal world. Horos now imparted to the souls of men (for all the bodies composing the corporeal world are possessed of souls) a pneumatic or spiritual element, but this only attained to full activity when C'hrist, a collective emanation from all the seons, appeared as Saviour, and united himself with the man Jesus. In the end, all that is pneumatic, and even the originally psychic or soul element in as far as it has assimilated itself to the psychic, will return into the Pleroraa. The Valentinians existed as late as the .second half of the fourtli centur.v. See Gnosticism. VAL'ENTI'NUS (?-c.lGO). The founder of one of the Gnostic sects which came into existence in the first half of the second century. According to Epiphanius {Bwr. xxxi. 2) he was born in Eg^'pt, as some assert, of Jewish parents, and was educated in the Hellenic schools of Alex- andria. During the reign of Antoninus Pius (about 140) he came to Rome, where he first ap- peared as an orthodox religious teacher. On his settling in Cyprus he became an open enemy to the Church and began to propagate his peculiar doctrines, for which see Gnosticism; Valen- TINIANS. VALENTINUS, Basilius. A medieval al- chemist, born probably on the upper Rhine. In his youth he is said to have made extensive travels through Spain, the Low Countries, and England, and in 1413 he is found living in the monastery of Saint Peter at Erfurt. His numer- ous writings ofl'er a curious mixture of mystical obscurity and real scientific love of investiga- tion, especially in chemistry and metallurgy-, in which he made some notal)le discoveries. It is not known whether his works were originally composed in German or in Latin : the most com- plete edition of them is that published by Petrjius (Hamburg. 1717). VALERA Y ALCALA GALIANO, va la'ra e ai'ka-la' gii'le-ti'no, Juan ( 1S24 — ) . A Spanisli novelist, poet and scholar, born at Cabra, in the Province of Cordova. He was educated at Malaga and at the University of Granada, where he took his degree in law, and then entered upon a diplomatic career (1847). When the Duke de Rivas was sent as Spanish Ambassador to Naples, Valera accompanied him. He was then as a member of the Spanish legations at Lisbon (1850), Rio .Janeiro (1851-.'i3), Dres- den and Saint Petersburg (1837-58). After his re- turn to Madrid (1858) he became one of tjie editors of the liberal journal El Contempornneo (1859). He was a leading member of the Union Liberal, and was made Minister to Frankfort ( 18U5) by General O'Donnell. After the Revolu- tion of 1868 he was appointed Director of Public Instruction. During the reign of Alfonso XII. he was Ambassador to Lisbon (1881-83), Wash- ington (1885), and Brussels (1886), and in 1893-95 to Vienna. Throughout all his diplo- matic and political activity he produced works which rank among tlie highest that his country's literature contains. 'alera really began the movement in fiction that was the glory of the last three decades of the nineteenth century in Spain with his Pe- pita J'unene::, first published as a serial in 1874 and since translated into many modern languages. Pepita was written after Valera had steeijed his mind in the Spanish mysticism of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His next novel. Las ihisioncs del doctor Faiistino (1875), the story of a modern Faust, did not catch the popu- lar favor so quickly as Pepita. His third novel, El comendador Mendo::(i (1877), is free from philosophizing. After a shorter story, Pasarse de listio, appeared the Doiiii Liiz (1879). Having abandoned politics, Valera wrote El hechicero, Juanita la larga, La bucna fama, (Jeiiio y fig lira, De i^arios colores, and Morsa- mor, all attractive novels. The short tales of Va- lera are hardly less known and apjireciated than his more extended works. Among tlicm are the Ctientos. dialoyos y fantasias, the delightful little El pujaro rerdc, the Pursondes, the Asclrpigeiiia, the Gopa, and the Bcrmcjino pre- liistorico. In the poetry of Valera his erudition is more visible than any other trait. By trans- lating or paraphrasing in verse the poems of for- eign authors, Valera has made his countrymen acquainted with portions of the poetic literature of Germany and the English-speaking regions; thus he has rendered into Spanish verse parts of Goethe's Faust, of Uhland's ballads, and of Moore's Paradise and the Peri; poems of James Russell Lowell, Wliittier, and W. W. Story. He also translated Schack's Poesic vnd Kunst der Araher (1881). As a critic he displays great powers of observation, and gives evidence of wide reading. Among his critical and otlier works are Ten- tatiras aramdticas (1879) ; Disertaciones y jiidi- cios liJerarios (1882); Arte de escribir novelas (1887) ; Estudios criticos (2d ed. 1884) ; A'uei'OS cstiidios critieos (1888); Cartas americanas (1889); De Rios arr/entinos (1901); Ecos argeiiliiios (1901): and Florilcgio de poesias castellaiias del siglo XIX. (1901-02). Consult Brunctit^re. La casuistiqiie diiiis le roman de Juan Valera. in his series Histoire et litierature, vol. i. (Paris, 1884). VALERE, va'lar'. A stock nanu' for a lover in French classical comedy. In Moli^re's L'avare lie is the son of Anseline and lover of Elise, Har- jiagon's daughter. The character occurs also in Le depit amoiiretix. L'ecole dcs maris, and Le medeein volant, and in Mrs. Centlivre's Game- ster. VALERIAN (OF. raleriane, Fr. raUriatie, from ilL. raleriana, valerian; probably from Lat. Vnlerianiis. prop, name, from ralere. to be strong, able), Valeriana. A genus consisting of about 180 species of annual and perennial herbs of the natural order of Valerianacen?. The com- mon valerian {Valeriana officinalis) is abundant