might with equal propriety upon those grounds have been put ten years earlier or ten years later. The deceptive and arbitrary character of the conclusion, however, will be more apparent when we examine the grounds upon which the relative dates 140 and 160 rest. Tischendorf here states that the time at which Valentinus flourished falls about a.d. 140, but the fact is that, as all critics are agreed,(1) and as even Tischendorf himself elsewhere states,(2) Valentinus came out of Egypt to Rome in that year, when his public career practically commenced, and he continued to flourish for at least twenty years after.(3) Tischendorf s pretended moderation, therefore, consists in dating the period when Valentinus flourished from the very year of his first appearance, and in assigning the active career of Ptolemseus to 160 when Valentinus was still alive and teaching. He might on the same principle be dated 180, and even in that case there could be no reason for ascribing the Epistle to Flora to so early a period of his career. Tischendorf never even pretends to state any ground upon which Ptolemæus must be connected with any precise part of the public life of Valentinus, and still less for discriminating the period of the career of Ptolemæus at which the Epistle may have been composed. It is obvious that a wide limit for date thus exists. After these general statements Tischendorf details the only evidence which is available. (1) "Irenæus (in the 2nd Book) and Hippolytus name him together with Heracleon; likewise (2) pseudo-Tertullian (in the {206}