JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Vigiliae Christianae.During Christianity's earliest years, according to the New Testament witness, it was not difficult to become a member of the fledgling Christian Church. In front of synagogues and amidst marketplaces, one of the evangelists, such as Peter or Paul, would preach the good news of salvation in Christ Jesus, calling upon the gathering crowds to repent and be baptized (Acts 2.14-42; 3.12-4.4). Sometimes the message was given individually, as when Philip gave private instruction to the queen's eunuch, baptizing him in a nearby river (Acts 8.26-39). Whether to large crowds, small groups, or single seekers of truth, the book of Acts reports that the Christian gospel was taught and people were added to the new and rapidly growing church by baptism (cf. Acts 16.31-34; 13.15-44). Instruction and repentance were the primary criteria for membership.By the third century, however, we find an elaborate apparatus in place in the form of the catechumenate and its concomitant rites to prepare people for baptism and entrance into the Christian community. The period of instruction is lengthy, usually for three years or more, and preparation includes prayer, fasting, and a series of antidemonic rites, such as exorcism, all geared to ensure that the candidate is fit in heart and mind to receive the sacrament of new birth.The fully-developed exorcism ritual found in the Apostolic Tradition, circa 215, is the earliest example we have in which exorcism has been incorporated as an essential element of the baptismal process in the mainstream Christian Church. Yet there is no evidence from the second century to suggest that this has been a standard practice of the Roman church.' Whence and when did exorcism as a baptismal ritual come? The earliest evidence, from Theodotus, gives us a clue both as to the origins of prebaptismal exorcism and as to how the rite came to be a This content downloaded from 193.255.248.150 on Thu, 5 Feb 2015 13:20:09 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE VALENTINIAN CONNECTIONfundamental part of the rituals of the Roman church. We find a common element between Theodotus of Alexandria and the mainline church at Rome in the person of Valentinus, second century Christian teacher and gnostic. It was Valentinus himself, we would like to postulate, who brought the exorcistic practices of a branch of the Alexandrian church to Rome, where they were incorporated into the Roman ritual, a ritual that eventually became standard throughout the Christian world. AlexandriaTheodotus, a pupil of Valentinus, was active in Alexandria as a Christian gnostic teacher, c. 140-160. Excerpts of hi...
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