Philo’s Influence on Valentinian Tradition

In this book Risto Auvinen reevalutes the relationship between the exegetical and philosophical traditions found in the works of Philo and those of the Valentinian gnostic tradition, with a particular focus on the latter half of the second century, Valentinianism’s formative years. Auvinen asserts that the number of parallels between Philonic and Valentinian sources reveals a relationship between Philo’s writings and Valentinian teachers. These connections expand our knowledge not only of the preservation and circulation of Philo’s texts in the latter part of the second century but also the importance of the allegorical traditions of Hellenistic Judaism on Valentinus’s school of thought and on Gnosticism more broadly.