This view derives great support from the way in which Clement of Alexandria, Valentinus’ countryman and the one among the Fathers who seems best fitted to understand him, regarded similar questions. M. Courdaveaux has shown with great clearness that Clement sometimes confounded the Third Person of the Trinity with the Second, and sometimes made Him His inferior. He also considered the Son as a simple creature of the Father, and, therefore, necessarily, of lower rank[429]. It was for such “heresies,” as they were afterwards called, that Photius, who had Clement’s now lost book of the _Hypotyposes_ under his eyes, condemned him as a heretic, although his judgment in the matter has never been adopted by the Church. M. Courdaveaux also shows that Tertullian, even before he left the Church, looked upon both the Son and the Holy Spirit as only “members” of the Father, whom he considered to contain within Himself the complete divine substance; and this was certainly none of the heresies for which his memory was arraigned[430]. It by no means follows that Valentinus’ teaching was the same as that of the Church in all its details; but it seems possible from these examples that he did not think it necessary to be more definite than the Church herself upon such points, and that he did not look upon them in any other light than as matters of opinion. It should also be considered whether the language that Valentinus used regarding the nature and divisions of the Godhead is to be construed in the same sense and as implying the meaning that it would have done a few centuries later, when these points had been long discussed and the reasons for and against them marshalled and weighed. So far as can now be seen, he, like all Egyptians, never lost sight of allegory in dealing with matters transcending sense. Thus, when he speaks of the pretended union of Bythos and Sige, he is careful to say that there is nothing actually begotten, and that the whole story must be considered in a figurative sense: “The Father [_i.e._ Bythos] alone,” he says, “was unbegotten, not subject to conditions of place, nor time, taking no counsel, nor having any other being that can be comprehended by any recognized trope: but he was alone, and, as it is said, solitary, and resting in solitary repose within himself. And when he became fruitful, it seemed to him good at a certain time to engender and bring forth the most beautiful and perfect thing which he had within him: for he did not love solitude. For he was all love, but love is not love unless there is something to be loved[431].” Between this and such Canonical texts as “God is love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him[432],” there may be a difference of application indeed, but none of language.