Quote. Einar Thomassen. Valentinian Ideas About Salvation as Transformation. 2009.

In his violent attack on the Valentinians in Book 31 of the Panarion, Bishop Epiphanius, amongst other grievances, also ridicules their views on resurrection:
They deny the resurrection of the dead, uttering some senseless fable about it not being this body that rises, but another one which comes from it and which they call “spiritual” (μὴ τὸ σῶμα τοῦτο ἀνίστασθαι, ἀλλ’ ἕτερον μὲν ἐξ αὐτοῦ, ὃ δὴ πνευματικὸν καλοῦσι). But [salvation belongs?] only to those among them who are spiritual, and to those called “psychic” –provided, that is, the psychics act justly. But those called “material”, “carnal” and “earthly” perish utterly and are in no way saved. Each substance proceeds to what emitted it: the material is given over to matter and what is carnal and earthly to the earth. (Pan. 31.7.6–7; trans. P. R. Amidon)
It is somewhat amusing that what Epiphanius here calls a “senseless fable” of the Valentinians in fact seems to be sound Pauline doctrine. The spiritual body that rises from the present one as a new and transformed being is precisely what Paul speaks about in 1 Cor 15:44: σπείρεται σῶμα ψυχικόν, ἐγείρεται σῶμα πνευματικόν. In other words, the Valentinians appear to have held a view of the resurrection that was more in agreement with Paul than was the doctrine professed by the heresy-hunting bishop.

Einar Thomassen. ‘Valentinian Ideas About Salvation as Transformation’. In “Ekstasis – Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages”, 1 – ‘Metamorphoses’, p. 169. 2009.

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