ABSTRACT
“Valentinus came to Rome under Hyginus, reached his peak under Pius, and remained until the time of Anicetus” (Irenaeus, Haer 3.4.3). This is the most reliable piece of biographical information we have about the founder of a movement which Irenaeus saw as the most dangerous of all the Gnostic heresies and therefore accorded special prominence in his Adversus Haereses Irenaeus’s statement suggests that Valentinus was active in Rome ca 136–160, which corresponds well with Justin Martyr’s mention of “the Valentinians” as a heretical group in his Dialogue with Trypho (35.6), written around 155–160.
