Having encountered sectarian and esoterically fundamentalist groups, I must admit I saw traces of their approach in the outline of Valentinus' complex, and bizarre ideas. To get a grasp of these ideas, of 30 different Aeons with multiple names and intersecting offspring one needs to be a Sudoku lover on Red Bull and caffeine pills. Some comments, however:
(1) The very incomprehensibility of the system seems to be part of its mystique, attracting people as a revelation of heavenly, esoteric mysteries.
(2) A key theme is that "material substance had its beginning from ignorance and grief, and fear and bewilderment." This has implications for soteriology, christology, and ethics.
Soteriology: Salvation comes from knowledge of the "spiritual nature." They further hold that the consummation of all things will take place when all that is spiritual has been formed and perfected by Gnosis (knowledge); and by this they mean spiritual men who have attained to the perfect knowledge of God, and been initiated into these mysteries by Achamoth."
Christology: Jesus, who is somehow related to one of 2 Christs and somewhere fits into the whole system, did not assume a material nature, only a spiritual nature.
Ethics: For the "spiritual man" what one does with the material body is of no use.
(3) Hermeneutics: Valentinus' gang's hermeneutics is of "Bible Code" methodology, seeking secret symbols and numerical codes in Scripture.
(note --for the really enthusiastic--Achamoth is mother of the demiurge, she is also known Ogdoad, Sophia; Terra, Jerusalem, Holy Spirit, and, with a masculine reference, Lord, she herself is not an Aeon, but daughter of Sophia an Aeon who in turn was the youngest of 12 aeons coming from Anthopos and Ecclesia, and who fell due to an attack of passion...told you it was bizarre!)
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