Robert Williams: Excerpts from Theodotus: Social Significance of Apostolic Identity and Boundaries

In the late second century, Clement of Alexandria recorded texts from Theodotus and other eastern Valentinians, accompanied by his critical responses, in Excerpts from Theodotus. Scholars have explored Clement’s work to analyze his reservations toward perceived rivals and to gain perspective on eastern Valentinian thought. This study furthers preceding research by determining the social construction of the Valentinian groups. Excerpts imply identity markers for these groups and boundaries constructed vis-à-vis rival groups, thereby distinguishing the Valentinians. Claiming authority on apostolic succession from Paul, they based their teaching on the “apostles,” Paul and John. Ritual practices, informed by Pauline understanding of salvation, enriched their experience with God. Einar Thomassen’s The Spiritual Seed: The Church of the ‘Valentinians’ (2006) has proposed three “dimensions” in Valentinian Christianity: salvation history, ritual, and protology. The Excerpts evinces symbiosis between the first two. The Valentinians thus saw themselves as undergoing “spiritual renewal,” experiencing a more profound unity with God, Johannine and Pauline, than those groups from whom they differentiated themselves. Indeed, contra Robert Pierce Casey, in The Excerpta ex Theodoto of Clement of Alexandria (1934), who attributes the demise of Valentinianism to its “complicated three-part approach to unity with God,” the present study suggests that the movement flourished because of its clarity and detailed approach to that unity. This analysis, then, provides a clearer picture of the appeal of eastern Valentinian groups associated with Theodotus, their apostolic identity and their boundaries with respect to contemporaries.